More on the Critical Analysis of War

HARBESON: Some deep thinking about war

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — I hesitated before submitting last week’s column wondering whether medals and commemorations may stifle the critical analysis of war. I knew it would probably upset some people and it did.

However, I’m glad I pushed on because I received a very interesting letter from Mr. Sanford “Sandy” Kelson, a veteran who was not upset.

Mr. Kelson was born in 1944 and joined the U. S. Army in 1963. He explains why:

“When I was growing up, my education caused me to believe certain things. Education is not just what you learn in school. It’s what you learn at home, from TV, newspapers, the movies, from music, art, etc. I got a consistent message from all these sources. I learned that we Americans were special. We were better than others. Our form of government was the best; our economic system was the best; our leaders were more intelligent and just; we were more honest, smarter, more trustworthy and brave. God was on our side ...

“So, in 1963, young and patriotic, I enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three year tour of duty ...”

He became a sergeant in charge of a 10-man machine gun squad and although his outfit ended up going to Vietnam, Kelson himself did not. He continued:

“Just before my outfit was due to be shipped out, my commanding officer, a captain, summoned me to his office. He explained that since I had less than 90 days remaining in my three-year tour of duty that I would not be going to Vietnam. My orders were changed from going to Vietnam to being discharged from the Army and being shipped back home to Pittsburgh, Penn., to safety, to the bosom of my family, while my outfit, my buddies, would be going to Vietnam, into harm’s way. I was so naive and stupid that I had no idea what this would mean to me later on.

“After I got home, I started getting letters from my friends who were in Vietnam. The letters told of horror after horror.”

He shared stories about several men from his outfit who were killed or permanently injured. The stories in his email are extremely gory and unpleasant. But, I’m glad he sent them; we should all learn the gory and unpleasant details of war.

He then shared another letter:

“A buddy wrote and said, Sandy, everybody here hates us. I wondered, how could any of them hate us? My friends were dying to protect them from communism, from the North. We were spending billions of dollars in Vietnam. How could they hate us? We were the good guys, we wore the white hats. I was confused. Things didn’t add up. I began to critically think — possibly, for the first time in my life. Up until then, I had believed what I had been told by my government on faith. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no proof. I started going to the library and I read everything I could on Vietnam …”

“I have been speaking to students to tell them my story. I ask that students do not take what I say as truth. If students do, then, in a way, I will have done to them what others did to me as a young person … I ask that you not accept what anybody tells you as truth. Not your parents, not your teachers, not your religious leaders. You must explore, by reading, discussing and critically thinking and find your own truth and then to act on it for the benefit of all the peoples of the world, our brothers and sisters.”

There is much, much more in Mr. Kelson’s email. If you think it’s time you started taking a deeper, more critical look at war, let me know and I will be happy to forward his letter to you.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson is hoping to wear out her index finger pushing the forward button on her computer this week.

The (Purple) Heart of the Matter

HARBESON: The honor in war

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — I’ve been thinking a lot about war lately. This is partly due to the U.S. Postal Service’s government-granted monopoly on delivering first-class mail.

See, I recently discovered that the stamps with the odd shape I’ve been using for a while, and slapping on envelopes upside down, are commemorating the Purple Heart. As most of you probably already know, the Purple Heart is an attempt to make us all feel better about the damage done to individuals who were unlucky enough to get physically wounded or killed by our nation-state’s involvement in various wars.

I think it makes a lot of sense to try to do something to acknowledge what has happened to these people and to their families. What concerns me is how such actions may contribute to the continuation of war.

Medals and commemorations worry me because they create an atmosphere of automatic hero-worship over the critical analysis of a given war. Growing up with memorials and commemorations helps build the belief that American wars are always moral. This has led to acceptance of actions from politicians that go far beyond any sensible understanding of defense.

Awards such as the Purple Heart are used by the government to promote abstract moral ideas like honor, glory and service to the country. But little, if any, attention is given to the effectiveness of using violence as a means to resolve conflict.

Ever since the phrase “greatest generation” was embedded in our culture, I’ve always thought it was strange how we talk about our aging veterans as if they all voluntarily consented to join the military. The way our society pretends that all veterans were willing to go kill people in other countries on behalf of this country hides the real dissent that existed in all wars fought.

People were still being conscripted into military service as recently as 1972 and I wonder how some draftees or families feel about the Purple Heart. Does a medal ease the burn or does it further inflame the horrific injustice?

When the draft ended, advertising on behalf of military service began almost immediately. This happened at nearly the same time the government created a law banning some cigarette advertising because, well, those things can kill you.

As Americans, it’s relatively easy to go about our daily lives insulated from the horror of war. We’d have to work hard to even imagine what it would be like to have another country’s military camping on top of the Knobs, claiming to be there in the name of freedom while at the same time killing our children.

So is it possible to hand out medals to soldiers and their families without glorifying war at the same time?

I noticed that the town of Clarksville plans to spend money on “improvements and additions” to its war memorial and the low bid was more than $300,000. Governments spend a lot of money memorializing war; that in itself may be one clue that it might not be a good idea.

Maybe the best we can do is stop focusing war commemoration activities on our singular perspective. Perhaps every time war is memorialized, mourning should include all the human deaths that occurred, the soldiers and the involuntarily conscripted on both sides, as well as the civilians who live in the country where the battles occur who just happened to be born on the wrong piece of dirt at the wrong time in history.

People should certainly be able to empathize with the helplessness felt by families who live in the countries the United States invades. After all, despite the claim on having greater freedom to control the government Americans live under, it still seems impossible to get the politicians, Democratic or Republican, to stop playing their war games.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson wonders if a day will come when a private entity creates a stamp commemorating the end of government.