Veteran's Day Open Thread

 

"The Green Fields of France" - The Fureys

As Yglesias notes, there is something to be said for the old holiday of Armistice Day rather than Veteran's Day from the perspective of recognizing the end of the greatest folly in the history of mankind rather than glorifying the heroism of war.  I've read obsessively about the Great War in the vain hope of truly understanding how it happened and no matter how many tomes I've pored over I've never gotten a satisfactory answer.  It is ultimately a case of collective madness among ruling elites -- a madness that ultimately spills over into the greater madness that prompts the war's sequel within a scant twenty years or so from the first round of unspeakable slaughter.

If there is a lesson in this it is I think that the potential folly of ruling classes can never be underestimated -- as we have seen on a much smaller scale in recent years -- and that people will continue to romanticize war as a means of solving problems in a way that defies all actual experience.  Hopefully, this is not symptomatic of that phenomenon, but I fear that it is. 

Comments

[Lisa Simeone]

And yet we learn nothing. We're still in Iraq, we're still in Afghanistan, we're still sending drones over Pakistan and Yemen to kill and kill and kill. It's horrifying and soul-destroying and never ending, this unquenchable desire mankind seems to have for war.

[Joe]

Well, that's not exactly true. Europe and Japan learned a great deal. Europe and Japan abandoned imperialism which was a prime cause of WWI and WWII. The United States would look different too if not for the American South.

[Lisa Simeone]

Well, Britain still went along with Iraq.

[Joe]

True, but the population was always opposed to the whole thing, and I think you can trace Labour's defeat in part to anger about Iraq.

[Emma]

And Australia. Yesterday at 11 am when my workplace stopped, listened to The Last Post and observed a minute's silence for the 60,000 Australians dead in the Great War, I sat wondering why Australia still send soldiers far away over the seas to fight other people's wars. Australia lost more soldiers per capita than any other Allied nation. And we learned nothing. Nothing. We still glorify this pointless war and all the others.

[Sir Charles]

Lisa,

I think it is fairer to say that Tony Blair, for reasons that will never make sense to me, chose to go along with the invasion of Iraq and dragged the Labour Party with him -- much to its detriment. I dont' get the sense that the British people ever favored the war.

Emma,

This song was written by Eric Bogle, a scotsman who emigrated to Australia in the late 1960s (also the writer of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda"). The losses incurred by the ANZAC forces during World War I are pretty mind boggling on a per capita basis. My maternal grandfather fought for this side of the empire as a Newfoundlander. In fact I believe his unit was shipped to Galipoli to relieve the ANZAC forces after the slaughter. I think they too had a pretty frightful degree of losses. My grandfather survived the campaigns in France in 1916, but with some permanent disabilities as a result. Sadly, he died when I was a young kid so I never got the chance to ask him about the madness of it all.

[Emma]

SC, I once heard Eric Bogle sing this song at a morning session at a National Folk Festival when he was so hungover he could barely stand up, but he somehow managed to put all the pain into the music.
"The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" was written at a time when revulsion at what Australians had done in Vietnam (another war we should have had nothing to do with) made pacifism a mass movement here. It's about a WWI soldier who refuses to have any part of the march on Anzac Day (our national war holiday) because he actually remembers what the war was like. Now that all the WWI soldiers are dead, the culture goes back to glorifying the slaughter as if it was for something. Feh.

It's a great song though, covered by many greats too. Eric's version is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCm_yQ_M_ps

[Emma]

Actually, having just listened to it again, it's probably impossible to explain the way that the segue into Waltzing Matilda at the end kicks an Australian in the gut. Eric used to do it without singing the words, just playing the melody on his guitar. Which works too. Now I need to wipe my eyes, and get back to work.

[Sir Charles]

Emma,

It's a devastating song.

I am an incredible fan of the Pogue's version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" -- somehow it just seems like Shane Mcgowan was born to sing the song. And they do it so slowly and mournfully, never really picking up the pace from dirge-like.

[big bad wolf]

in the u.s. it seems as if our post-vietnam insistence that those who fought would be spoken of well limited our debate about what we were asking them to do. this didn't have to be so. the right played us, as they so often do. the right created a synedoche in which the soldier was the war and therefore could not be criticized. too many democrats assented to that synedoche. it is possible and necessary to separate out the two---and not just with the bumpersticker sentiment support the troops not the war.

what i find even more disturbing is something i have noticed on my last few visits to d.c. i try to get to the vietnam memorial each time i am in d.c. i find it ineffably sad and beautiful and wise, It slopes and rises, bearing witness to the madness of sacrificing people for abstractions with the concrete--the names---and suggesting through its own abstract beauty that our society can spend lives and bodies on better things than war. it bothers me, though, that it seems to have become a class project to have students write a note to a soldier named on the wall. too often these notes, which are left to be read, suggest that viet nam is being taught to school kids as a mistake because we didn't win, that the loss was somehow a result of lack of support for the soldier. i certainly don't blame the kids for the notes; the complexities and lessons of the war are above them, but i do wonder about the teachers and how we lost the one obvious lesson of vietnam---we should never fight---that is ask others to die for us in a far off place---unless it is absolutely necessary.

[Crissa]

The insistence that veterans should be spoken well of matches ironically to the point that the hero of Mai Lai has gotten death threats from veterans for the rest of his life.

[kathy a.]

BBW, i'm sure you remember, too, that there were times during the VN war when soldiers and sailors were not welcomed back with gratitude for having done their duty, much less were their needs provided for; those who opposed the war blamed them for participating, and those who supported the war thought they were fodder, and if they had weaknesses like PTSD, that was their problem.

i suspect those note-writing kids are doing their best to be respectful in a place dedicated to remembrance, and that the enormous complexities of that war are very hard to grasp, even if a teacher is trying to teach the many layers of what went on then and there. and here, and after.

and those kids don't know how the person whose name they selected felt, personally, about the war. two of the most damaged [by ptsd] VN vets i knew both joined up because they wanted to support and serve our country. and both were indeed failed after their returns, the damage inflicted on them not being as visible as, say, a missing limb.

it doesn't seem inappropriate to wish an individual dead vet better support, all things considered. that is a different problem than whether we should have sent so many to such an ill-considered mission in the first place.

[kathy a.]

i'm speaking really in generalities about how returning vets were received home, based on what they reported as their experiences. but those impressions reported by my guys were also supported by other information from the time.

[Lisa Simeone]

Of course most of the British people were against the war. That didn't change the fact that their leaders sent them off to die in it. That's why I say we never learn. It's the collective "we." Mankind, the human race, people. Some learn. Most don't. If they did, we wouldn't have so many wars.

Crissa, the hero of My Lai, the soldier who reported the Abu Ghraib abuses, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, David House, and the entire Wikileaks chain --they're not respected and lauded as they should be, they're shunned and threatened and even harmed. We (again, collective "we") don't value their sacrifices, their courage, their moral rectitude. We don't even pay lip service to it. We just excoriate them and go off to start more wars.

I'm not saying anything new, and certainly nothing controversial. You can go back to Homer for this, and well before.

[Sir Charles]

bbw,

One of the fascinating things about the Vietnam Memorial is how it has come to be revered after having been the subject of much right wing villification in its early years. In fact the realistic sculpture of the three soliders that adjoins it was added in response to protests by those who described Maya Lin's design as a ditch of shame and other epithets.

Right wingers have, in fact, always been stupid.

[big bad wolf]

i agree kathy that the vets were not always treated right. i find silly the claim that one occasionally sees from the left that there is not one documented case of mistreatment---which i think goes to the "spat upon" stories. um, we're talking about a time when not all of life was captured and posted in real time (which was kind of nice). i was there, if young, and i heard nam vets get given shit, and i doubt i was the only one who did. the problem was that after vietnam the valid point that one should not disrespect, let alone mistreat, the soldier, became the larger, less valid point that the soldier is noble, his mission is noble, and to criticize the mission he has been sent on is to disrespect and mistreat the soldier by denying his nobility. that's wrong. a war or proposed war can and should be opposed and criticized if it is ill-founded, even if it risks hurting the feelings of a soldier. the right has incorporated the human, including liberal, desire to be kind and supportive and respectful into the chorus of war.

as i said, i'm not upset with the kids, but i do wonder if we are teaching them well about history. and i wonder if we are teaching them that one can be respectful and tolerant, and sometimes even emotionally supportive, and still disagree deeply with another's positions or actions.

[big bad wolf]

SC, one of my areas of intolerance (i know, you're shocked to hear i have such areas :)) is that sculpture. i'm too invested in both the beauty and symbolisn of the wall and i associate that sculpture with all the awful things said about the wall by the right-wingers. i always discuss with the kids why it was added and why it might be a fine sculpture but my opinion of the addition is low (my poor kids).

the other day after corvus and you wrote about drunk posting, i was rewriting elvis costello in my head for a couple of my late night posts: you drink yourself insensitive/and read yourself in the morning
s ci

[Joe]

Lisa, I don't think many people were initially opposed to WWI. From what I have read, lots of people volunteered to serve in the various armies, and there was quite alot of enthusiasm for war.

A general enthusiasm for war seemed to be the case across the board in the West. Theodore Roosevelt was constantly opining on the positive qualities of war. Communists seemed as enthusiastic as the various Imperialists.

That type of belief system seems to have died out among the populations (if not among the elite in the Anglosphere).

[kathy a.]

BBW, i think we are in agreement. the rightness or wrongness of the war should never be conflated with a judgment about a person who serves [when that person has no say in the nation's decision to go to war, or much of anything else].

i think that conflation happened to protect the big dogs who were calling shots. mcnamara wrote his book, and it was something groundbreaking that he called the war a mistake in retrospect -- but that didn't bring back the 58,000 of our own or the many others lost, and he never did admit some of the worst of it. project 100,000, for example.

[Emma]

There were significant anti-war movements in many countries during WWI, mostly emanating from labour and socialist movements. In Australia, widespread opposition to conscription for the war led to two referendums on whether it should be imposed, both unsuccessful, which caused a split in the Labor Party. In 1917 there was a general strike in Australia which historians have attributed to war-weariness. Like many anti-war movements, much of this is de-emphasised in popular history.

[Sir Charles]

Emma,

In the U.S., labor leader and perennial Socialist Party candidate for president Eugene Debs (he once pulled 6% of the popular vote) was put in jail for speaking against the war and the draft. In one of its worst decisions ever, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his conviction. At his sentencing hearing, Debs said the following, words that to this day I find incredibly moving:

"Your honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the form of our present government; that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believe in the change of both but by perfectly peaceable and orderly means....

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out their lives; of the little children who, in this system, are robbed of their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body and soul....

Your honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never more fully comprehended than now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they will come into their own.

When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the Southern Cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches the Southern Cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of Time upon the dial of the universe; and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing – that relief and rest are close at hand.

Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning."

He concluded with this: "Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

While in jail, Debs received nearly a million votes in the 1920 presidential election.

[Emma]

Wow, SC, that is fine speaking. And still true. The breadth of American political traditions, of its socialism and radicalism in particular, never ceases to amaze, when contrasted with the narrow lens through which the rest of the world gets to see you guys. That's why, I think, Australian radicals, while often bitterly opposed to US governments, have also found the US to be a source of great inspiration and wonder, whether in labour politics, feminism, civil rights and anti-racism, gay rights or whatever.

[oddjob]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
- Lt. Col. Dr. John McRae

According to an account I've read online battlefield surgeon John McRae knocked this poem off in about 15 minutes during a smoking break between surgeries in May of 1915 (when the poppies bloom). He died in January of 1918, while still in the army and still overseeing a battlefield hospital, of pneumonia, and most likely he became subject to that pneumonia via fatique.

[oddjob]

@Joe | November 11, 2010 at 06:50 PM

I haven't read about this closely by any means, but the superficially acquired impression I have of that war and its impact was that it was the manner in which that war was fought and the societal damage it caused that resulted in the abandonment of the widespread 19th Century ethos about the honor and manliness of young men going off to war in the name of glory, and the honor of country and king.

(Fighting in trenches and getting mowed down wholesale made it difficult to wax rhapsodic about "Once more into the breach!" anymore.)

Teddy Roosevelt was all about that glory and I think his experiences in the Spanish American War only confirmed it all for him. He lost his most loved son in WWI, and died in his sleep shortly thereafter.

[oddjob]

On a personal basis, I hate Veterans Day.

Personally? As the son, brother, cousin, nephew, and great-great-grandson of veterans (not to mention the descendant of someone who fought in the Revolutionary War), of course I honor the contributions of veterans!

Having said that, I can't help being hypersensitive to the conflation of the sacrifices of veterans with the inherent rightness of American pro-war and pro-imperial policies that I intensely disagree with. I can't imagine what it's like to be Andrew Bacevich (or Minstrel Hussein Boy, for that matter)!

I SOOOOOOOOOOO hate all the blathering I see from high school classmates on Facebook beating their (virtual) breasts about "FREEDOM ISN'T FREE".

No, of course it's not, but Goddamit! THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT EVERY TIME SOME IDIOT FOOL OF A PRESIDENT DECIDES HE WANTS TO INVADE A COUNTRY JUST BECAUSE HE CAN THAT HE HAS MADE A CORRECT DECISION!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Yes, I've just violated the convention about not virtual yelling.)

[Emma]

And World War I had nothing whatever to do with freedom. British, French and American women, for example, were without the vote, so there were precious few democracies involved. NZ and Australian women could vote, but indigenous people couldn't, so that counts us out too.

[kathy a.]

oddjob, go for it.

[oddjob]

Wow, Emma. There's tons I don't know about Australia and New Zealand. Thanks for filling me/us in on that part about the disenfranchisement of "the natives".

(I assume the same was true in the USA since originally the "Native Americans" were viewed as separate nations/countries, but I don't recall when that view was abandoned in favor of regarding them as native-born citizens of the USA.)

[Corvus9]

I love that Pogues version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" too. That's the song that really clinches for me that Shane MacGowan truly is an amazing singer. I've actually listened to it three times in a row today.

Interesting to see Debs brought up. Funnily enough, I have most directly been exposed to Debs (did you know he was pardoned by Harding?) through Kurt Vonnegut, who birthday happens to be today. (Happy Birthday, Kurt!) I think I remember Kurt writing about how he hates Veteran's Day, but liked Armistice Day.

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

I did know about the Harding pardon (which is kind of poetic). Not to sound like Jonah Goldberg, but Woodrow Wilson was an absolute utter prick with respect to Debs and other World War I protesters. As was Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Vonnegut and Debs are fellow Hoosiers. One of Debs' virtues from the perspective of the left of the time was that he was an American born, protestant from the heartland, rather than an immigrant bringing a foreign ideology to America's shores.

I think Vonnegut has some pretty blunt opinions about the glories of war. Cleaning up Dresden will do that to you.