| | Sent to War... Into Honor or Infamy © 2005 by Carl Hitchens A Just war vs. an unjust one. The road to honor or infamy is a soldier's lot. In the Land of the Free, we support our country's policies, when morally deserving; oppose them, when morally far afield. The essence of democracy is it not? Where do the troops fit in then? How do we care and support them, and still address the right or wrong of policy? The karmic (of destiny or fate, following as effect from cause) panorama is so broad and complex, when it comes to living out the dharma (virtue, righteousness, duty in accord with cosmic order). So many roads taken, so many places reached within the spiritual landscape. It's never black and white, it's never without seeming contradiction: The Buffalo Soldiers were denigrated by the very settlers they were sent to protect from Native Americans defending their land and way of life. These soldiers, in the aftermath of the Civil War, with its ostensible freeing of the slaves, were not treated equally with their white counterparts and denied the compensations promised after their service. Yet, their service, albeit admirable by standards of valor, courage and commitment -- not to mention, the attended glory given their duties of protecting white encroachers -- was, ironically, dedicated to the killing and enslaving of a people, to continue the unmolested plundering of their way of life. In a way, everyone is living an existential existence, whether they look to ideals or not, because how we define ourselves and our actions is a matter of how we perceive life and our place in it. Often, it is not a conscious choice, but conditioning is still related to self-identification. What can we say of Arjuna in the Bhagavadgita? Many things, of course, from Krishna's eyes or our own. What can we say about anyone? And what point of view is irrefutably, unequivocally, absolutely right? Everyday, I see the contradictions that we all engage in, even as we have our own idealism about the life we wish to live. Vegans (no meat and dairy), vegetarians devote enormous amounts of energy in keeping the animal karma clean. Yet, they, without a thought, will use and ingest all manner of herbs, natural decoctions, organic substances to repel, arrest, kill, evacuate micro-organisms from their bodies and physical and psychic spaces. When that fungus finds a home on them, when that parasite dwells within, when that cold germ debilitates, they are impelled into high gear to "manage" their personal environment. The germ has got to go. The mouse, cute as he is, has got to go. Rattler stay behind the rock; don't come into my tent, my house, my comfort zone. One human to the next, we build up all kinds of "absolutes" for how it should go, how it should be, how the other guy should, must see things, work out things, coexist with things. None of us are so different. Our duty, therefore, is too idealize what we come to accept as the purest and the truest, within ourselves and the world, and put that into action, into self-actualization. We put that before the world in deed, speech, thought, and creativity. And we love the world despite itself. We say, Soldier, welcome home!... you are a sight for sore eyes. But this war sucks; it is not waged for self-defense or self-autonomous liberation. It is, therefore, wrong -- the killing, the suffering that bring more of the same. Whatever your personal vision of the world, soldier, whatever you see as the road to a better place, war cannot, by its nature, dispel fear and loathing. And it is fear and loathing that bring us to kill one another. There is not one personal choice, but many, to end poverty, hunger, injustice. Choose, therefore, soldier, to see beyond the invocatory veil of glory and righteousness. See the gravestones on both sides of fear and loathing. And with that image, go forth with compassionate clarity and indomitable will that cannot, will not, be blinded by empty words. That cannot, will not, be intimidated or made gullible at podium or pulpit. In that place you've gone, in its destitution of human goodness, in its horror of death and numbness to feeling, in its searing of your spirit-self, is a scar of revulsion connecting us beyond fear and loathing. We're not worlds apart, soldier. Only in the darkness of where you've been, only in the disillusion of a world gone mad, did it seem that we of differing viewpoints were not of the same tree of life. Carl Hitchens is a Vietnam veteran who served with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division in Vietnam 1968 - 1969 For more about this author, click Authors. | |
