Memorial Day …. War Revisited
For many years I’ve been present at a ceremony to remember and honor the war dead. Given a story told yesterday I found it hard to sleep last night. The stories do not fill me with admiration for the dead. After some reflection I tremble inside, shiver with revulsion at the thought of five close knit brothers slain at sea in a hellish paroxysm of fire and ripped steel plating. They were the Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa. Their cruiser, the USS Juneau was hit by a torpedo while in the Solomon islands in 1942. The fifth and oldest brother died of his wounds after floating for some days on a raft. The story goes that he went over the side of his raft after four days, in a delirium to end his suffering.
I heard the story and doubt if I will or should ever forget the tale. I understand that WWII was a conflict that engulfed every nation and everyone was involved one way or another. The war was not optional, one did not get to volunteer. You served on one side or the other. There was no outside of that conflict for anyone. The hubris driven lethal cruelty of the Axis powers was unconditioned, limitless,— and you were an executioner or a victim. The Allies fought to live. That was my father’s war. And that war makes complete sense to me.
Every war that we have fought since, the many more regional, and equally deadly conflicts, seem to me as recurring outbreaks of insanity, not unlike the onslaught of a mania, a politician-ignited frenzy. The common man or woman is persuaded, is sold on the importance of his participation by the sales-banter of patriotism, and the shiny, sparkly uniforms, and the invocation of a holy cause by the ritual, etc. Naturally the enemy is demonized, fit only for killing.
What is never plainly said, is that you are likely to die in piss and shit, in a water filled ditch, most horribly with indescribable pain,– if you are lucky. If you are unlucky you will return home bringing that nightmare with you. That is the unsaid truth. And what benefit package could conceivably be enough to compensate for that? To die for a lie. This is a very old story.
To repeat myself once more, World War II was the last conflict where the rationale for participation in the killing was transparently clear. There is no necessary sacrifice, no bloody exchange of anyone’s life, so that everyone else can continue to live in security and safety. That too is an ancient superstition.
Life itself is hazardous, and you will experience conflict at many levels, of various intensity. This you will experience alone and also with others. Live, struggle, fight, and die if you must. But not on account of a lie.
