Memorial Day 2023

     For many years, I was reflexively patriotic in the naïve sense. I would immediately jump down the collar of anyone who chose to denigrate these United States or its military involvements. I had my reasons, of course; don’t we all? But many of them don’t look so good to me these days.

     Today is an occasion for a related reflection. Millions of men, and a smaller number of women, have gone to war at the direction of the United States federal government. The overwhelming majority of them believed in the cause for which they fought. A great many of them died while rendering that service.

     Memorial Day, and Veterans’ Day on November 11, are when we formally acknowledge their service and sacrifices. It is entirely appropriate that we do so. But it’s also an appropriate time to reflect on the motivations and decisions of the men who sent them to war.

     What is the purpose of war? One of the best known and best loved pro-military novels ever written set out the general rationale in a single sentence:

     The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force.

     It cannot be made clearer than that. But though the statement is clear and impossible to refute, it compels the honest man to ask other questions. The most troubling of them goes to the motivations of the men who send our servicemen forth to fight, bleed, and die.

     The U.S. has gone to war many times. Despite the relative youth of our nation, we’ve been at war a whole lot. Some of the motivations behind those wars have been whitewashed out of the histories. In a couple of other cases, they’ve come to light more promptly, to the embarrassment of the decision makers. The servicemen dispatched to do battle and the citizenry exhorted to support the war effort have seldom been told candidly about the full range of those motivations.

     The War of 1812 was animated in part by a desire to extend the northern and western boundaries of the U.S. The Mexican-American War was fought for that reason among others. The Civil War was fought in part over slavery, but also over import tariffs that heavily favored the industrialized Northern states at the expense of the agrarian South. There are many conflicting theses over what got us into the Spanish-American War, though it appears that one significant driver was the “yellow journalism” of the Hearst newspapers. We entered World War I over a telegram. We entered World War II for reasons so murky and complex that arguments rage over them even today. As for Korea, Vietnam, and our more recent wars, my Gentle Readers are invited to do their own research.

     But in each case our servicemen were told that they were “defending freedom.”

     I shan’t defend the governments of the nations against whom our forces fought. They were as dubiously motivated as ours. The point is that the decisions made to dispatch armed forces were not wholly animated (if at all) by the defense of freedom, or of the United States, or of the American national interest however conceived. From this vantage point – and it may be no more accurate than that of an Andaman Islands savage – it seems that those considerations were seldom dominant.

     Nevertheless, our servicemen went forth. Many never returned home. It is right and fitting that we honor them, but it would be wrong to believe that the causes for which they were sent to do battle were necessarily what they – and we – have been told.

     Many years ago, I wrote in a novel:

     “We have talked,” he said, “about all the strategies known to man for dealing with an armed enemy. We have talked about every aspect of deadly conflict. Every moment of every discussion we’ve had to date has been backlit by the consciousness of objectives and costs: attaining the one and constraining the other. And one of the first things we talked about was the importance of insuring that you don’t overpay for what you seek.”
     She kept silent and listened.
     “What if you can’t, Christine? What if your objective can’t be bought at an acceptable price?”
     She pressed her lips together, then said, “You abandon it.”
     He smirked. “It’s hard even to say it, I know. But reality is sometimes insensitive to a general’s desires. On those occasions, you must learn how to walk away. And that, my dear, is an art form of its own.”
     He straightened up. “Combat occurs within an envelope of conditions. A general doesn’t control all those conditions. If he did, he’d never have to fight. Sometimes, those conditions are so stiff that he’s compelled to fight whether he thinks it wise, or not.”
     “What conditions can do that to you?”
     His mouth quirked. “Yes, what conditions indeed?”
     Oops. Here we go again. “Weather could do it.”
     “How?”
     “By cutting off your lines of retreat in the face of an invasion.”
     “Good. Another.”
     “Economics. Once the economy of your country’s been militarized, it runs at a net loss, so you might be forced to fight from an inferior position because you’re running out of resources.”
     “Excellent. One more.”
     She thought hard. “Superior generalship on the other side?”
     He clucked in disapproval. “Does the opponent ever want you to fight?”
     “No, sorry. Let me think.”
     He waited.
     Conditions. Conditions you can’t control. Conditions that…control you.
     “Politics. The political leadership won’t accept retreat or surrender until you’ve been so badly mangled that it’s obvious even to an idiot.”
     The man Louis Redmond had named the greatest warrior in history began to shudder. It took him some time to quell.
     “It’s the general’s worst nightmare,” he whispered. “Kings used to lead their own armies. They used to lead the cavalry’s charge. For a king to send an army to war and remain behind to warm his throne was simply not done. Those that tried it lost their thrones, and some lost their heads — to their own people. It was a useful check on political and military rashness.
     “It hasn’t been that way for a long time. Today armies go into the field exclusively at the orders of politicians who remain at home. And politicians are bred to believe that reality is entirely plastic to their wills.”

     Servicemen from the lowliest private to the highest-ranking general are in thrall to the politicians who send them forth. They don’t get to question their orders. They certainly don’t get to say, “Sorry, dude. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I’m staying home.” Those that resist their orders are not well treated nor well remembered.

     My point here is not Smedley Butler’s blanket condemnation “war is a racket.” Some wars must be fought, whether or not they succeed:

     We love peace, but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man, than war is destructive of his body. Chains are worse than bayonets. – Douglas Jerrold

     And of course, there is no dishonor involved in going forth at your commanders’ decree. You signed up; you trained; you awaited the call. When it comes, you must go. To go is the fulfillment of the oath you took. It’s the only honorable thing to do.

     But that does not sanctify the decisions of the men who send you forth.

     Honor the soldier, but be ever ready to call the politician to account.