Chris Belland's - "Hindsights & Insights"
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Honoring our warriors doesn't require that we fully grasp their sacrifice

By CHRIS BELLAND Citizen Columnist

Three days hence is Veterans Day here in the United States. While it is easy to get caught up in the patriotic fervor of national purpose during wartime, it is not an excuse during peacetime to forget the sacrifices of those who gave so much for the benefit of all.

As I was born in 1948, just after World War II, and I was very much aware of the Korean War during the 1950s, I had a certain child's sense of what war meant. Certainly, from a child's viewpoint, it was not a mature understanding, but as it was often discussed by adults, I knew it was something important. The most fascinating part of it all for us kids were the Army surplus stores that were in great evidence during my youth. I can vividly remember walking through these vast, dark warehouses of helmets, bandoliers, canteens, bayonets and clothing with a very visceral sense of place. The sweet canvas, leather, sweat and lubricant smell of these places is indelibly etched in my memory. Playing army and acting out the death rituals of killing "Krauts" and "Japs" (perfectly acceptable John Wayne terminology at the time) was looked upon by the adults as a benign activity, though I look back on it today with some sense of shame.

One of my best friends was named Gert Altman, whose father and mother were both German and spoke the language at home but certainly not in public. He was a milkman and I couldn't understand, at that age, why anybody would want to kill somebody like Mr. Altman. My sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Erdley, at our constant insistence born of curiosity, once brought in souvenirs from the war and I impudently and very ungraciously asked him how many Krauts he had killed during the war, to which he somberly replied that I shouldn't ask such a foolish question.

In fact, growing up, I cannot remember anybody of the appropriate age who had not been involved in one or both of these conflicts, but it was odd that there was very little talk about people's actual experiences. Even today in historical accounts, most interviewees are somewhat reluctant and often offer a humble response of "just getting a job done." From my past experiences and my current observations, I would say the wounds of war run extraordinarily deep.

Though I did not serve myself, my closest mature and adult introspection has to do with the Vietnam War, as I have, indeed, spoken directly with friends, family and acquaintances who were involved in that conflict. Their guarded feelings are not usually described, for unless you are talking with someone who experienced the same things, conveying what war was like is probably not possible.

Therein lies the conundrum of the current generation, for how can you not take for granted what you have never lost or suffered for? I can take both sides of a discussion about whose fault it is that graduating high school seniors can't tell you anything about the Civil War, World War I or World War II. They live in a day of relative peace and prosperity, and perhaps it is a national tendency to want to forget about what was suffered in these great conflicts -- but we do so at our own peril. No, in times of peace we should make much of the celebration of those very qualities of sacrifice, honor, duty and loss that make what we have possible.

Because I did not live through an event like World War II, which had a very definable enemy and purpose, it is hard for me to relate to the patriotism of the time that led to the common purpose of conducting such an affair. The conflicts of my life have always been somewhat nebulous in purpose, and with outcomes that have been anything but certain. We lost some 58,000 of the best and brightest of our country in Vietnam and today this country is one of our primary trading partners.

Was anything solved in Korea other than some man-made definition that separated a people, one to the north who presently suffer under one of the worst dictatorships on earth, and the other to the south who enjoy unprecedented economic prosperity? We imprudently went off to conflicts in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, and now find ourselves in the unenviable position of not being able to withdraw -- and even so, the regimes that were ostensibly supported are now among some of the most corrupt on earth.

Of course, all of this is not anywhere near the point of what Veterans Day is and should be all about. We elect those in whom we believe and we hope their decisions are made with national purpose and integrity in mind, though many times I doubt it. When these decisions are made and the call goes out, it is those who answer to whom we owe the gratitude. On Wednesday, let us remember well that from the Revolutionary War through Afghanistan, including our own Civil War and those lost on Sept. 11, 2001, 1,268,488 fathers, sons, brothers, sisters, uncles and mothers died and 1,646,241 were wounded so that we could be the freest nation ever to exist on the face of this planet.

May God bless our veterans.

Chris Belland's Hindsights & Insights column appears here on Sundays. Belland also writes a biweekly column on environmental issues, which runs in our Sunday magazine, Solares Hill. All of his previous columns are available on his blog: hindsightsandinsights.blogspot.com. Contact Chris at cbelland@keysnews.com.