Bacevich: "I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose"
I know I (Scott) should say something about Andrew J. Bacevich's heartbreaking WaPo essay, "I Lost My son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty."
A brave, grieving father. Our sympathies to him and his family.
This hits close for me - as I too am an academic type, opposed from the beginning to this misadventure. My oldest son is a "gung ho" Lieutenant in the Army National Guard, when he's not an engineer-in-training for VDOT and a first-time father-soon-to-be.
I often wonder late at night, like right now, of all the ways I failed him, of how I didn't better inoculate him from the siren songs of the recruiters and the neocons. When he earned his ROTC scholarship, 9/11 had just happened; Iraq was still on the neocon drawing board. My son is now living the dream of his late West Pointer grandfather, not mine. At least he still talks to me -- well, usually. He still desperately wants to believe that his "duly elected leaders" wouldn't be sending him on a fool's errand, and that his father is the one with the screw loose.
I share Bacevich's anger, his disgust at the pathetic non-responsiveness of our democracy -- of the corrupting "money," the rabidly fanatical Christian-zionists, and certain "Middle East allies" who've hijacked US foreign policy.
Morgenthau was wrong; no country automatically follows its NATIONAL INTEREST. It's not written in the gene code.
I also share Bacevich's indignation at those who blame the father for his own son's death, for having given "aid and comfort to the enemy" with his criticisms of "our" side. Vile indeed.
For today, we have a family reunion on the Blue Ridge Parkway, near a special family spot at "hump-back rocks." I try not to think of where we might be next year, or if...
May all the families currently separated be brought together soon. My son won't like this, but my (selfish) idea of supporting our troops will be to bring them home - much sooner rather than later! I must do more.
Peace to all.
Mr. Harrop,
I, too, read Andrew Bacevich's article in the Washington Post. As a veteran, son, and father of two sons myself, I can sympathize with the intergenerational miscommunication that so many families, despite their deep and abiding love for one another, frequently cannot overcome. My sainted working widowed mother -- may she rest in peace -- never got over her WWII-generation patriotism, and this caused no end of argumentation between us. "Who will defend us from our enemies if you don't?" she would ask of my Vietnam-era skepticism. "Who will defend me against my own government if you don't?" I would reply. (As you know, we draft-age cannon fodder back then couldn't vote.) I loved and respected Mom (as well as my Navy veteran step father) utterly, but we never agreed about the also-patriotic need to defy insane, rampaging government when necessary. At any rate, after reading several contributions by others on the occasion, I thought I'd revisit something I wrote a few years ago that still seems appropriate to me today. I call it:
"The Hero with a Single Face"
In times good and bad, genuine heroes appear among us. On this Memorial Day, 2007, I would like to reflect again upon a time when I had the good fortune to know a truly brave, principled, and compassionate man during my military service in Vietnam now some thirty-five years ago.
As the base translator/interpreter I often had to work with a young physician, a U. S. Navy lieutenant, who ran our little river outpost medical facility, or “sick bay,” as we sailors always called such places. I can’t remember the lieutenant’s name anymore, so many years have passed; but I do remember his wispy blond hair and moustache (ironically, the same sort of regulation facial hair that another navy officer elsewhere had banished me to the bowels of the Mekong Delta for wearing to his petty displeasure.) At any rate, the lieutenant would call on me for assistance any time a wounded, sick, or injured Vietnamese required medical attention and the doctor needed important information from the patient.
One time, a marine colonel brought in one of his wounded American soldiers along with a wounded Vietnamese, supposedly an enemy prisoner. The lieutenant did what any good doctor would do and immediately determined which patient needed what kind of treatment and which patient needed attention in the most urgent way. The wounded American had taken a bullet in one of his arms or legs, as I remember, but otherwise he seemed able to manage for the moment. The Vietnamese, for his part, had a gaping wound in his abdomen; had clearly lost a lot of blood; and obviously had difficulty enduring a great deal of pain. So the doctor quickly gave the American an injection against infection and discomfort, stopped the bleeding from his injury, and turned to treat the more severely wounded Vietnamese. Then the shit really hit the fan, so to speak.
The wounded American soldier tried to attack the nearly unconscious Vietnamese man lying on his back on a wheeled operating table nearby. Then the marine Colonel told the lieutenant not to treat the Vietnamese until he had “talked first.” (I fearfully assumed that I would have to “interpret” the injured man’s agonized “replies.”) As an enlisted man caught between two superior officers and facing the prospect of participating in the forced interrogation of a badly injured man, I didn’t know what to do or how I would do it. Things had suddenly gotten really bad really fast.
The young doctor saved everyone involved with a professional display of steely resolve such as I had never before witnessed. He told off the colonel in no uncertain terms; said that he ran his operating room and said who did what in it; and told the colonel to get his man under control or take him elsewhere. The treatment then continued, as it should have. Two injured persons got the care they required. No one died. No interrogations took place under illegal or immoral conditions. And I never had to find out if I had the courage and sense of honor sufficient to stand my own ground and do the right thing like the lieutenant had done.
I’ve never forgotten that experience, nor several others like it from days I would just as soon not remember. I only know that I try to keep the memory of that young navy lieutenant alive in my mind as a constant reminder of how nobly and courageously some people can act when the situation calls for it. I have no doubt that such heroes still exist in this world and that they go about their daily jobs little dreaming of what good they will do when someone else, enemy or friend, needs their bravery the most.
The late Joseph Campbell wrote a book on mythology once, called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I recall that title often whenever I think of that young lieutenant doctor who served so many people so well and so quickly so long ago. I can’t honestly say that I’ve seen all the thousand faces of heroism – it has countless many more – but I do know that I’ve seen one of them.
My deepest thanks to both Scott and Michael for honoring the site with these fine contributions.
These three pieces by Bacevich, Harrop, and Murry should be required reading for all Americans.
They say pretty much everything that needs to be said.