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A soldier acceptable to liberalism
When the New York Times finds a Gulf War veteran to write about this current war, they find an alienated depressive who opposes the war. Notice how every single thing Alex Vernon says in his op-ed (I’ve copied the article below and bolded the typical phrases) conveys a negative emotion, a sense of things not being right. Notice his attitude, which is central to modern liberalism, of shapeless victimhood in a world without meaning. Notice how he says that he would like to be in this war, not because he believes in it (he doesn’t), but because he finds life to be so devoid of meaning that the desert is “nonsensically … one of my soul’s few homes,” and “I miss the sand.” This sad semi-nihilist would seem to be the only kind of military man that the Times finds acceptable. (I suppose it also helps that he is an assistant professor of English.)
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Twelve years ago, as a lowly tank platoon leader in the Persian Gulf war, I had only the vaguest idea of where I was or what was happening around me. Yet I also knew that, no matter how much they watched CNN, friends and family back home couldn’t know what it was like to be tossed against the nearly windowless walls of a Bradley armored fighting vehicle as it bumped its way across the desert. Today’s soldiers have a far better sense of their surroundings; some have touch-screen computers linked to satellites that can show the position of the army on the battlefield. (In the gulf war, advanced command-and-control technology was the Post-it note.) And with hundreds of journalists “embedded” in the troops, soldiers may have a better idea of overall operations, while viewers and readers have a much better sense of the life of the grunts and the strategy of the generals. Still, the presence of so many journalists tricks us, once again, into thinking we know more than we do. With every revelation, despite myself, I ache to see a little more. Yet I also realize that whatever I say about these soldiers’ experience is pretense: I can never truly know this war. In 1991, the ground war stopped after 100 hours—four days and four hours. This ground war was just getting under way after four days. In the gulf war we stopped when the real challenges would have begun: our supply lines were stretching very thin, our ammunition was starting to run low, and our vehicles were beginning to break down from the hard and fast riding we gave them. We were exhausted. As our division made its mad dash around Kuwait through southern Iraq, my job as platoon leader included keeping our company in its proper place in formation—and keeping my drivers awake. I was constantly on the lookout for tanks slowing down and stopping. That usually meant both the driver and the tank commander had dozed off. The United States military prides itself on its ability to respond to rapidly changing situations. But this flexibility demands a great deal of its soldiers. Vigilance and clear-headedness are these men and women’s most important resources. They are also a tired army’s first casualties. As a veteran, I worry about when these soldiers come home. This war is more controversial than the gulf war. And though antiwar protests will probably not affect morale or military operations—at least not in the short term—veterans might have more conflicted emotions about their participation than did veterans of the gulf war. As if it weren’t enough to contend with images of their own dead and maimed, of dead and maimed Iraqi soldiers and civilians. I hurt for the leader whose platoon killed 10 civilians who did not stop as they approached his checkpoint. He faced an impossible moment. He and his men must live with the consequences. With the headlines. With the overheard conversations about collateral damage. Last week, looking out my front window, I saw a boy, maybe 7 years old, riding a red bicycle with training wheels as his mother ambled behind. On his head he wore a bright green surplus-store helmet liner from World War II, and strapped to his back was a life-sized wooden rifle. Several mornings later a picture on the front page of the local paper showed an American soldier in Iraq stooped over reading his Bible. The scrawled message on his helmet read, “Kill ‘em all.” Hoo-ah. I have my own conflicted emotions about this war. I do not believe we should be fighting it, yet since we are I feel that, but for my family, I should be part of it. This feeling has nothing to do with wanting the rush of adventure or wanting to “finish the job.” Simply—if nonsensically—that desert has a singular claim on me. It is one of my soul’s few homes. The gritty no-slip texture of the front slope of an Abrams tank, which I have not felt in more than a decade, is more palpable to me than the wooden handle of the skillet with which I made dinner last night. I miss the sand. Alex Vernon, assistant professor of English at Hendrix College, is an author of “The Eyes of Orion: Five Tank Lieutenants in the Persian Gulf War.”
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