While
idling at a red light the other day, I noticed a new bumper sticker: “Home of
the free because of the brave.” There was no room on the bumper sticker to
explain just who the “brave” are, but we all know, don’t we? Our soldiers
serving in Afghanistan and up until recently, in Iraq.
Having lived through the Viet Nam
War, I’m often struck by just how dramatically our attitude has changed toward
our soldiers. Back in the 60s and 70s, soldiers were “baby killers” and worse. As anti-war activists, we seemed to hold them
personally responsible for the war itself.
Perhaps it was because that phrase from the Eichmann trial still echoed
in our minds: I was just following orders. In an unjust war that was no
defense.
Of course, for many of us, the young
men were not the same boys we went to school with and were all too easy to
vilify. They came from other neighborhoods and other parts of the country. It
wasn’t until years after the war had ended and I was working as a reporter that
I met my first soldiers. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome was just being
recognized, and as I interviewed veterans, I was shocked and deeply distressed
by the traumas they had suffered first during the war and then back home in
civilian life. I was especially moved by the women I met, nurses who had served
in combat hospitals only to find themselves unappreciated and adrift at home.
But even then, when the pain of
these young veterans was all too fresh, I don’t remember calling them heroes. “Hero” just didn’t slip glibly off my
tongue. It was a term used sparingly,
reserved for those who were larger than life, who faced adversity with courage
and who took the moral high ground.
Which
brings me back to the present.
In recent days, a U.S. soldier has
been implicated in the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan. Already his
defense team is talking about the stresses of four deployments, traumatic brain
injuries, and financial worries back home, and the picture that’s beginning to
emerge is not of a monster, but of a man who snapped under pressure.
Still, I think the massacre drives
home the fact that war is not just about heroes. The Afghanistan war is now in its 11th year, and we don’t
it seem to be winning many hearts and minds. By calling all our soldiers
heroes, we don’t have to ask ourselves why we are asking so much of so
few. Yes, like that bumper sticker put
it, our brave soldiers are helping to keep us free – free from serious debate
on questions like what are we trying to accomplish, are we succeeding and is the
sacrifice indeed too high?
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