If War Is Hell, Why Do We Keep Sending Our Children There?

Joyce Walker <jkwalker@earthlink.net>

01/1404: (ICH) I've never experienced combat, and can't imagine what it would be like to live in fear of being shot or seeing bodies ripped apart by high powered weapons. But I've learned enough about war to realize some of the horrors that our soldiers face when we send them to a battle zone.

The image I had of war as a child was formed by the super-patriotic movies from WWII which were constantly replayed on television, extolling the acts of heroism that rose out of that conflict. But I was to learn that if war brings out the hero, it also brings out the brute in men. 

I got my first glimpse of that beast in high school in the section of A Farewell to Arms that describes a bawdy G.I.'s efforts to assure a frightened young woman that he won't ____ her. (If the word hadn't been blanked out by Hemingway, the high school librarian would not have dared recommend it to me.) I didn't miss the implication in that passage of what soldiers sometimes do to female victims of war.

Years later, during a pleasant family visit, I received an unexpected lesson about the cruelty soldiers to each other when a kindly member of the group, a veteran of WWII, related the murder of a captive by one of our troops. The image of the pitiless act was more than I could bear, and I pleaded for him to change the subject.

If I had realized the importance of his sharing that experience, perhaps I could have shown more understanding. But I wasn't prepared to do that at the time. When I think about the many thousands of veterans carrying back similar or more horrendous memories, I imagine them being hushed by people like myself when they tried to discuss that unheroic side of war. Some undoubtedly kept silent about the worst of their own actions, never able to share the guilt they bore.

A cousin who served in the Korean War never talked about his experiences. In fact, I don't remember anybody talking about it, except in regard to the contest between Truman and MacArthur over control of the war. It was not until recently, after learning about the military's use of chemical weapons on civilians in that campaign, that I was able to imagine how the sight of masses of dead civilians - men, women, and children who were killed by our own military - must have been seared into his memory.

In spite of the awesome force our military unleashed on Vietnam, the United States was not successful in overcoming the North Vietnamese resistance. Caught off guard by the communists' easy infiltration of their compounds and use of women and children as soldiers, U.S. troops responded to insurgent attacks with indiscriminate retaliatory action against the civilian population.

I recently viewed a photograph of a group of Vietnamese men and women who had been providing service to the troops on a U.S. base, rounded up for execution following an attack by hostile forces. The expressions in their eyes were haunting. I can't imagine the nightmares that the soldiers carried back with them as the result of the murderous act that followed.

A family member serving in the Panama invasion seldom mentions that experience and when the subject is raised gives subtle signs of regret. Throughout that highly staged and propagandized maneuver, the military and government boasted about the low casualty rate among our soldiers, but independent news sources provide abundant documentation of political executions and imprisonment of Panamanian civilians. The U.S. military may have found in those practices that our young people don't have the makings of mindless killing machines, because since then they seem to have adopted the practice of using forces with proven capacity for compassionless killing where face to face violence is required. 

For example, the Northern Alliance that assisted the U.S. in the conquest of Afghanistan already had a well established reputation for inhumane crimes against their own people before our military employed them. U.S. "special forces" combatants, sent in prior to the regular troops arrival, supervised, or at least witnessed, the dastardly mass executions of captive soldiers committed by the Northern Alliance that is documented in The Convoy of Death , shown repeatedly on Link T.V. I wouldn't want the nightmares that the soldiers involved in that massacre must experience.

Concern for the mental well being of our troops is probably not the foremost consideration in the employment of mercenaries in Iraq. There might be several advantages to the military and government in using these "contract security forces," including financial payback, reduced numbers in reports of military casualty rate, and less constraint to the use of force. Again, by appointing Sadam Hussein's own henchmen to key positions in Iraq, the military is using ghouls with proven propensity for committing violence.

The increased suicide rate among our troops indicates the duress our soldiers are experiencing in this new "Vietnam," placed amidst a populace resentful of occupation by forces of the wealthy nation that has kept a boot on their neck for more than a decade and incensed by the unlashing of our powerful weapons on their weakened population. 

Reports by independent journalists indicate that the military has blocked efforts by soldiers to be released from their assignments in Iraq. It was only after the story became publicized concerning Georg Andreas Pogany's facing charges of cowardice because of his request for discharge following a traumatic response to the sight of a man's body cut apart by gunfire that the charges were reduced, then dropped. But most of our troops are trapped in their assignment unless public pressure causes a change in policy.

Will our troops be left with the burden of guilt for the violations of world law committed in this conflict like they were in Vietnam? It might be hard for the military to place the blame for all the civilian deaths on one low level officer as they did after the My Lai Massacre was exposed. Then, on whose heads should the responsibility fall when action is finally taken against the war crimes committed in our country's name? 

Should the greater part of responsibility fall on the merchants capitalizing on war's despair? Or should our political leaders who have sold out their constituencies for a cut of war bounty be held most accountable? What about the commercial media that has been complicit in the deception that made this debauchery possible? I can imagine major perpetrators in the world's latest campaign for world control standing before the world, as did the Nazi leaders of Germany, using their worn out propaganda to defend their evil deeds.

I believe what veterans have repeated time and again, "War is hell." I still believe, though, there are things worth fighting and even dying for - like our own and others' liberty. Perhaps the world has come closer this time to the verge of destruction than ever before, and I believe the most important battles still lie ahead. 

War mongers have surely been around since before the beginning of human history and will continue to test our love for liberty and peace. I believe the ultimate responsibility for saving the world from the grip of today's empire builders lies with us. Is it not time to face the truth? How long will we, the people continue sacrificing our children to the wars of tyrants seeking to exploit the earth and its population for its resources? 

More information on the Net 

The Case of Panama:U.S. Continues Its Bully Ways As International Outlaw; "The December 20, 1989 Invasion;" "Casualties:" by Brian Willson.
http://www.brianwillson.com/awolpanama.html 

Korean International War Crimes Tribunal; 'Report and Final Judgment on US Crimes in Korea 1945-2001." 
http://www.iacenter.org/ktc-contents.htm

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan(RAWA); "News Archive."
http://www.rawa.org/

USA Today; "Army Probes Soldier Suicides;" by Greg Zoroya.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-10-13-army-suicides-ust_x.htm

The Washington Times; "Use of Private Security Firms in Iraq Draws Concerns:" by Borzou Daragah.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031006-122420-5426r.htm