War and Remembrance
I've been thinking about the discussion of the Vietnam war that took place among contributors here last week. As far as I recall, that war and the Korean War, from a U.S. policy perspective, had little or nothing to do with the welfare of the people of Southeast Asia. Our goal in Korea, Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia was never to help the locals; it was always to contain China. Sure, there was a lot of rhetoric about “communism,” and diversionary red scares peppered the hoohah, but it was not the form of government that concerned us. (The most belligerent war hawks never murmured about declaring war on “socialist” countries like Sweden & Denmark or on the dozens of dictatorships we often aided and abetted.) What policymakers cared about was China's taking over the portions of Asia it did not already control.
In the 1950s and '60s, pretty much everybody in the U.S. believed in the “domino theory” – and with good reason. It was proved in Eastern Europe and ultimately in Southeast Asia as well. Whether or not the people of Vietnam are happy with their government today seems relatively unimportant to the issue. The question was then whether or not the Vietnam war was worth the effort to contain China. Maybe it did slow that country's march over its neighbors and influence its politicians' decision not to go further – at least militarily.
Facile remarks about agent orange, by the way, say nothing whatever about whether or not the war itself was justifiable. Certain military tactics may be unjustified – for humanitarian or other reasons – in a conflict that is otherwise a “just war.” Ask the people of Dresden about that.
Another concept most Americans believed in at the time their leaders were amping up the Viet Nam military effort was that our guys were the “good guys” and our aims were righteous. Millions of Americans, including most of our leaders during the Vietnam era, had participated in what was seen almost universally as a “just cause” – World War II. Young men signed up for Vietnam because their fathers had gone to Italy or Guam. To find fault with them – years or decades later – for believing in the rectitude of our leaders then seems rather callous. Maybe ya hadda be there to get it. Opposition to the Vietnam war was never universal, though it grew with time and events. There was often a certain selfishness in much of the opposition, and the same was true for many who favored the war. Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton were hardly the only guys who thought they should not have to risk getting shot up because they had better things to do stateside.
In hindsight, was Vietnam a good idea? Well, we lost, so maybe not. We lost in Korea too – mostly – but democracy did gain a little toehold in a region that is largely devoid of popularly-controlled government models. I don't know if Japan's and South Korea's examples have influenced the demands of those Chinese citizens who are pressing for a more open, capitalistic society, but that seems plausible.
A veteran of the Korean conflict, a contributor here, reminded me of another benefit to the Korean war: “I got a 4-year, totally free, college education and a guaranteed low-interest, zero-down home loan out of the deal,” James Singer wrote.
I have often written about the social compact that dominated this country's economy during much of the second half of the last century – the unwritten understanding among the government, business and labor that each had a stake in the U.S. and that each needed the others for the country to prosper. But I don't think it ever occurred to me how important the wars were to that compact: the G.I. bills that funded Singer's education & home loan also paid for millions of others' educations and provided for low- or no-down-payments on their little slices of the pie. The social compact may have developed out of the disaster of the Great Depression, but for decades the G.I. bills were a significant factor in sustaining it. Little changed for women and minorities in the two decades following World War II – even though minority men did their share in the wars* – but the white man-of-the-house made out pretty well. So did the country, for all he contributed in return.
*AND, I should have said, so did women of all hues.
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Reader Comments (6)
I would add three thoughts to Marie's short essay.
First, the roots of the social compact that gave and give millions the benefits of the GI Bill go back a long way, to the pensions paid to Civil War veterans (I remember mention of some arrangements for veterans of the Revolutionary War, too) and to the Bonus Army, a child of the Depression, when it marched from Oregon to Washington, D.C. in the early 30's to urge the payment of the long-promised bonus to WWI veterans. In fact, that promise was not kept in full until we were about to be engaged in yet another war, WWII. (Interestingly, the confrontation between the Bonus Army and the troops called in to disperse it boosted Douglas Macarthur's career, another instance of how events and their consequences echo and re-echo through the years.)
And speaking of WWII, I would say the effects of that conflict on women and minorities were profound, if not instant. Moving millions of women out of the home and into the workplace forever changed the way American women viewed themselves and their possible roles, and Truman's integration of the armed forces, while for years observed more in name than in fact, was a turning point from which there was no turning back. Many men of color who in the decades to follow became aggressive and effective civil right leader were kick-started in their fight for full freedom by their military experience (and, of course, the GI Bill's benefits provided a social and economic base from which to mount that civil campaign).
Finally, Vietnam. I believe our war against "Communist Aggression," as I heard it called during my growing up years, was always in large part a religious conflict, both in the two sides' specific beliefs and in the urge so many feel to believe in something divine or larger than themselves.
In my high school sophomore year I was treated to the "Better Dead than Red" conundrum, had an essay assigned on that topic in fact. I do not remember what I concluded or how I threaded that ideational needle, but I do remember the social pressure exerted to get the "right" answer while seeing the equivalence between choosing death and the stories of sainted Christian martyrs on which I was raised.
South Vietnam's Catholicism, a direct descendent of the French occupation, had much to do with our stake in that country. The American Catholic Church wanted war. Its bishops preached it, portraying the conflict as a battle between God and the godless. It was powerful Kool-Aid and many drank it. In prosecuting the war, we killed tens of thousands of our own citizens, hundreds of thousands of people we did not know, split our own country into warring halves and began a slide into national bankruptcy.
And, whether people think we won in Vietnam or lost the war either because it was fundamentally unwinnable or because we did not really pursue victory, too many are still drinking the distorting Kool-Aid of belief.
Hence Fox's hallucinations presented as news.
It ain't about the survivors...it's NEVER about the survivors...
It's only about the dead people.
"Maybe you hadda be there to get it." That is so true. When I try to talk to people about the war, I feel as if I'm talking to the wall. No war ican be summed up in a paragraph.
@Ken: yes the Catholics were in charge, but most of the people were Buddhists. Remember the Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire?
And whom did Vietnam go to war with after we left? China. We think it's over. It's not over. Just paused. An alleged Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Do we ever.
I know I won't be around to see how this plays out. I just hope those who are get a good result.
--Bob Hicks
Oh yes...the Vietnam War. Yikes! I was jailed (briefly) in the Washington, D.C. jail after a protest in 1967. Police fired tear gas, probably because some jerk peed on the Mall grounds. I was not involved, but the police arrested everyone in the area--which included the actress, Jane Alexander, and Avatus Stone (Baltimore Colts). We were taken to the jail, but not booked--released 9 hours later. The result: I was placed on the "no fly" list from that time until one year ago--whcn I appealed and was removed. Shit. Being anti-war and doing a peaceful protest is illegal (or at least sinful), but shooting and killing innocent civilians (having been trained to do so) is heroic.
Gimme a fuckin' break! We are really screwed up about the whole concept of a "moral" war. There is no such thing! We are simply "tools" of the war mentality, which will not end in our lifetime.
SO SAD!
A LITTLE BIT OF WAR
Anyone who does not feel the need
to wage a bit of war, is not in my
opinion a complete man. War is the most important
thing in a man’s life, like maternity in a woman’s.
—Benito Mussolini
There we have it. That small qualification—
One cannot imagine Hitler ever slipping
That in.
Feeling he had not been an iron-hard
Engineer of human souls
Was he only trying to be wicked?
Today, by the way, somewhere in Iraq
Or Darfur
Women, swollen with possibilities,
Sit —and wait—
Amidst the mess of these little bits of war.
2005
To quote a sergeant in Binh Thuy whose name I can't recall:
"War may be hell, but combat is a motherf*cker."
One of the oddities of modern war, at least U.S.-style war, is that the majority of "veterans" never were in sustained combat, and over the years they may think of themselves as "survivors". Their recollections of their experiences may tend toward romanticizing them: purpose, camaraderie, bonding, group aggression, effects of leadership, etc. Or on the other hand, waste, purposelessness, futility ("What was the point of drafting me to sit behind this typewriter in Long Binh?")
If you want to know about the experience of combat (which is a motherf*cker), a good easy starting reference is Bill Mauldin's book "Up Front." Which is about his cartoons during the Italy campaign in 1943. You get the understanding that, for those who experience it, most would never wish the experience on anyone else, again, ever. Yet some get addicted to it, craving that endorphin rush that comes from playing for keeps.
As Barbarossa notes, you can't really get noncombatants to understand this ... which sort of explains why younger generations are willing to take up arms to answer causes short of existential threat. The Lost Generaton after WWI (only a year to the Centennial!) thought that we had finally learned the gross waste of modern war. Their sons and daughters went on to kill each other in larger numbers than ever before. So the learning curve is variable and not smooth.
I fear the best we can hope for is that those who possess nuclear weapons HAVE learned that you can't use them. And the conventional wars can be kept limited, limiting the scale of death and waste.