thedrifter
07-24-07, 04:01 PM
Make war to win, or don't make it at all
St. Paul Pioneer Press ^ | 07/23/2007 | CPL. JOHN MATTHEW BISHOP
In a few short months many of us would join the fight for embattled Fallujah, and our instructors at the Marine Corps School of Infantry - most of whom were sergeants freshly returned from Iraq or Afghanistan themselves - intended to harden us accordingly. Whenever I remember those grueling months, I think of Daniel, a reserved, tough 19-year-old Marine from North Carolina who was my constant companion.
Although we hadn't known each other long, we preferred each other's company - a simple enough bond, but nonetheless one that in difficult times and places is invaluable in itself. Lance Cpl. Daniel F. Swaim - to give him his full name and rank - was an expert shooter, a thoughtful friend, and a quiet bunkmate, though we spent little enough time sleeping in our beds. More often, we laid shivering in crude foxholes, nodding on and off in two-hour shifts under the frigid constellations of January. Everything we suffered, we suffered together.
Almost two years have passed since the explosion that killed him. During that time, other comrades of mine have fallen, but Daniel was the first. Over the course of these many months, hardly a day has passed that I haven't seen his face in my mind and recalled the miseries - minor, in retrospect - that we endured as we trained for our first tour in Iraq. I remember him once mentioning that sometimes he thought he was destined to die "over there." It was as though on the eve of his hunting, he could already hear the baying of the hounds; as if, his scent-trail preceding him into the future, his aggressors had already gained his final retreat. Perhaps his air of solemn resignation was a mere idiosyncrasy, or perhaps it was wisdom. For if we do have a destiny, the menaces we flee throughout life are but tricks of misdirection, the baleful howling upon our heels is but a mock pursuit, and it is we in truth who, wending our way ineluctably thither, close the gap with fate.
Daniel, moribund but stoic, will always remain imprinted upon my memory, for the loss of a fellow warrior is an everlasting grief. As we tread hard paths in dread places, the brotherhood between us holds forth against the darkness, guaranteeing each that should he fall, he would ever remain inside an unbreakable circle. That very bond, though, renders it difficult to accept that the departed have passed beyond where we, the living, may follow.
From the first day of boot camp, Marines learn that pain is endured together - always, unfailingly together. Thus, it feels wrong - unjust, perhaps - that the grim dispensations of suffering and death are visited upon a select few. The mission goes on, of course, and the demands of the day disperse the lees of sorrow, like a merciful wind keeping everything aflurry in its wake. But unbestirred by distraction, in the stillness and silence, those sorrows persist, sinking back through the ether to downwardly alight and settle upon familiar roosts.
Every day, more young men like Daniel perish in Iraq. In previous articles, I've steered clear of political commentary, if only to distance my voice from the braying demagoguery and tone-deaf hysteria of American politics. To keep mum in the midst of political controversy is a soldierly tradition, after all - to paraphrase Tennyson: Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.
But to watch one's brethren die is to be faced with questions that are inherently political. To wit, what is the value of human life? What is victory worth in the precious currency of American blood? To wage war, a nation must first examine this grim calculus, a calculus in which the worth of human life is implicitly quantified and wagered toward the purchase and enactment of the national will. No simple fixed-rate transaction, this - unfortunately, war is always a high-stakes gamble. Hobby players and thrill-seekers might therefore exercise caution, examining the depth of their convictions before sitting to cards with opponents who have made a deal with the devil.
America now finds herself going head-to-head against just such an opponent in Iraq, and, for better or for worse, she looks ready to fold her cards and take a seat at the bar. The daily, wholesale slaughter, the perceived lack of progress, and the general feeling of weariness with this long campaign - each day finds her will at a new low ebb. To argue whether America's ever-growing sacrifices represent mile markers on the long road to a rehabilitated Iraq, or, alternatively, whether they indicate that victory, if possible, has simply become too costly, is not my intent. That is for the American people to decide.
But at the risk of breaking with personal habit and soldierly tradition, I would admonish my countrymen upon a few points.
First, war should never be an enterprise undertaken by nations that require certainty. Uncertainty and setbacks are a part of war and a daily reality on the streets of Iraq. No professional soldier feels betrayed when, in the course of a mission, he encounters hiccups, dilemmas, or bad odds. Nor does he feel betrayed because his mission involves death, for that is the predictable plight of a soldier: to kill and to be killed, to "do and die" as chance or destiny dictates. But to watch one's brethren cut down as America alternately pounces, vacillates, backpedals and chases her tail - this is a betrayal beyond reckoning.
Second, as great patriots such as Daniel die for causes they presume their nation is committed to achieving, a great nation, in turn, accepts nothing less than the victory for which it has bade its sons and daughters bleed.
On either part - soldier and nation - there is the presumption of honor.
And so regardless of what determination America reaches concerning the fate of Iraq, I urge her, so long as she exists, never to enter another war unless she goes to win. Should she ask her sons and daughters to take up arms, may she honor their sacrifices with the unflagging conviction and strength of conscience that is necessary to achieve victory. And if she cannot stomach the stakes involved, if the sacrifices of young men such as Daniel do not bolster her resolve but merely plunge her deeper into moral confusion and hysteria, may she, for her own good and for the good of the world, cease pretending at war altogether.
Cpl. John Matthew Bishop is a Marine who is serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. For operational security reasons, the exact location of his unit cannot be revealed.
Ellie
St. Paul Pioneer Press ^ | 07/23/2007 | CPL. JOHN MATTHEW BISHOP
In a few short months many of us would join the fight for embattled Fallujah, and our instructors at the Marine Corps School of Infantry - most of whom were sergeants freshly returned from Iraq or Afghanistan themselves - intended to harden us accordingly. Whenever I remember those grueling months, I think of Daniel, a reserved, tough 19-year-old Marine from North Carolina who was my constant companion.
Although we hadn't known each other long, we preferred each other's company - a simple enough bond, but nonetheless one that in difficult times and places is invaluable in itself. Lance Cpl. Daniel F. Swaim - to give him his full name and rank - was an expert shooter, a thoughtful friend, and a quiet bunkmate, though we spent little enough time sleeping in our beds. More often, we laid shivering in crude foxholes, nodding on and off in two-hour shifts under the frigid constellations of January. Everything we suffered, we suffered together.
Almost two years have passed since the explosion that killed him. During that time, other comrades of mine have fallen, but Daniel was the first. Over the course of these many months, hardly a day has passed that I haven't seen his face in my mind and recalled the miseries - minor, in retrospect - that we endured as we trained for our first tour in Iraq. I remember him once mentioning that sometimes he thought he was destined to die "over there." It was as though on the eve of his hunting, he could already hear the baying of the hounds; as if, his scent-trail preceding him into the future, his aggressors had already gained his final retreat. Perhaps his air of solemn resignation was a mere idiosyncrasy, or perhaps it was wisdom. For if we do have a destiny, the menaces we flee throughout life are but tricks of misdirection, the baleful howling upon our heels is but a mock pursuit, and it is we in truth who, wending our way ineluctably thither, close the gap with fate.
Daniel, moribund but stoic, will always remain imprinted upon my memory, for the loss of a fellow warrior is an everlasting grief. As we tread hard paths in dread places, the brotherhood between us holds forth against the darkness, guaranteeing each that should he fall, he would ever remain inside an unbreakable circle. That very bond, though, renders it difficult to accept that the departed have passed beyond where we, the living, may follow.
From the first day of boot camp, Marines learn that pain is endured together - always, unfailingly together. Thus, it feels wrong - unjust, perhaps - that the grim dispensations of suffering and death are visited upon a select few. The mission goes on, of course, and the demands of the day disperse the lees of sorrow, like a merciful wind keeping everything aflurry in its wake. But unbestirred by distraction, in the stillness and silence, those sorrows persist, sinking back through the ether to downwardly alight and settle upon familiar roosts.
Every day, more young men like Daniel perish in Iraq. In previous articles, I've steered clear of political commentary, if only to distance my voice from the braying demagoguery and tone-deaf hysteria of American politics. To keep mum in the midst of political controversy is a soldierly tradition, after all - to paraphrase Tennyson: Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.
But to watch one's brethren die is to be faced with questions that are inherently political. To wit, what is the value of human life? What is victory worth in the precious currency of American blood? To wage war, a nation must first examine this grim calculus, a calculus in which the worth of human life is implicitly quantified and wagered toward the purchase and enactment of the national will. No simple fixed-rate transaction, this - unfortunately, war is always a high-stakes gamble. Hobby players and thrill-seekers might therefore exercise caution, examining the depth of their convictions before sitting to cards with opponents who have made a deal with the devil.
America now finds herself going head-to-head against just such an opponent in Iraq, and, for better or for worse, she looks ready to fold her cards and take a seat at the bar. The daily, wholesale slaughter, the perceived lack of progress, and the general feeling of weariness with this long campaign - each day finds her will at a new low ebb. To argue whether America's ever-growing sacrifices represent mile markers on the long road to a rehabilitated Iraq, or, alternatively, whether they indicate that victory, if possible, has simply become too costly, is not my intent. That is for the American people to decide.
But at the risk of breaking with personal habit and soldierly tradition, I would admonish my countrymen upon a few points.
First, war should never be an enterprise undertaken by nations that require certainty. Uncertainty and setbacks are a part of war and a daily reality on the streets of Iraq. No professional soldier feels betrayed when, in the course of a mission, he encounters hiccups, dilemmas, or bad odds. Nor does he feel betrayed because his mission involves death, for that is the predictable plight of a soldier: to kill and to be killed, to "do and die" as chance or destiny dictates. But to watch one's brethren cut down as America alternately pounces, vacillates, backpedals and chases her tail - this is a betrayal beyond reckoning.
Second, as great patriots such as Daniel die for causes they presume their nation is committed to achieving, a great nation, in turn, accepts nothing less than the victory for which it has bade its sons and daughters bleed.
On either part - soldier and nation - there is the presumption of honor.
And so regardless of what determination America reaches concerning the fate of Iraq, I urge her, so long as she exists, never to enter another war unless she goes to win. Should she ask her sons and daughters to take up arms, may she honor their sacrifices with the unflagging conviction and strength of conscience that is necessary to achieve victory. And if she cannot stomach the stakes involved, if the sacrifices of young men such as Daniel do not bolster her resolve but merely plunge her deeper into moral confusion and hysteria, may she, for her own good and for the good of the world, cease pretending at war altogether.
Cpl. John Matthew Bishop is a Marine who is serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. For operational security reasons, the exact location of his unit cannot be revealed.
Ellie