The Absurdity of War

On Sunday afternoon I had the great delight to watching a New Albany High School production of the play, “A Piece of My Heart.” The play is centered on six women who served in Vietnam and their story of not only their lives during the war but in subsequent years. The story is, in itself, extraordinary and the production at NAHS was magnificent. The performances of the six young ladies in the play was nothing less than stellar. The fact that I knew three of these remarkable women made it even better.

The movie also reminded me of my time in high school. The Vietnam war raged through my middle school years and the Paris Peace Accord was signed in January of my last year in high school. The ‘draft’ was never far from our minds.

The peace accord was signed and finalized, American troops withdrew, and within two years the nation was an entirely Communist nation. The Vietnam War is often referred to as the only war the United States ever lost. Theoretically, this was not a war we lost on the battlefield, it was a war that we were doomed never to win. Critics like to point out that the war was ‘lost’ when Congress refused to fund it any longer. In reality, it had been lost a long time before. South Vietnam had a dreadful and corrupt administration with the only redeeming value being that they were not Communists. The Viet Cong insurgency made life incredibly difficult for our troops.

Our soldiers in Vietnam, in my mind, received and continue to receive a bad rap. There was drug use and there were bad things that happened. Frankly, when you put soldiers in difficult situations, bad things do happen. They have taken place in every war that every nation has ever fought. Our troops lived in constant danger, often lived in dreadful conditions, and faced an often faceless enemy. On the home front, tragically, people did not separate not supporting the war and the troops. Many people chose to support neither and returning troops, heroes, were treated with disrespect and disdain. It was an ugly era in American history.

It has made me ponder war. War is horrendous and mostly avoidable.

Most wars take place because of hubris on the part of someone and people, if they truly wanted to, could have solved many difficulties without going to war.

In the history of the last century we have seen wars at their worst.

World War I was an absolute nightmare. European nations had grown strong and belligerent and greedy. The hubris of the leaders of so many of the nations was massive and it was a conflict just waiting for an excuse. One assassination later there was an excuse and a war was launched that killed millions and accomplished nothing other then to completely rape Germany and re-draw the map of Europe. Nation building (post war) was anathema and the consequence of not doing nation building after World War I was World War II. Europe and Japan have been at peace since World War II largely because of the efforts of General George Marshall and his Marshall Plan which did do great nation building after the war. (The Marshall Plan was vilified by the current Bush Administration which chose not to do nation building after invading Iraq and the result has been only to validate the wisdom of George Marshall.)

Korea and Vietnam were wars to stem Communism and keep or get more land.

The First Gulf War was to free a sovereign nation (Kuwait) from an aggressor who was seeking more land and more oil.

The War in Iraq was fought because they had weapons of mass destruction even though they didn’t. It was fought because of 9/11 even though they had nothing to do with 9/11. It was fought to push forward the war on terrorism even though terrorists were training in Syria and Iran more than Iraq. It was fought to conquer an oil producing nation even though, well, I haven’t figured one out.

As I was watching “A Piece of My Heart,” I was thinking of our troops in Iraq.

The surge, putting a large number of troops in the region, has helped suppress the violence. We have great, dedicate, and brave soldiers who are quite competent. Their success with the surge is no surprise. It will not, however, solve things.

I keep thinking about Vietnam. When we left, the ending was quick and bloody and the resolution was not what we had wanted. If we leave Iraq it’s going to be quick and bloody there as well and the resolution will not be what we want. If we stay, it will be long and slow and bloody.

There is no good solution, for us, with Iraq. It was a place we should have never gone and it was a war we should have never fought.

It was and is a sad reminder of the absurdity of war.