Each year Memorial Day brings forth speeches, editorials, essays, poems, songs, and other attempts by survivors and non-participants to comprehend and justify war. The libraries of war songs and stories grow over time in inverse proportion to our collective memory of the harsh realities of death, destruction, and disruption that are the essence of war.
Fading memories seem unable to bear what really happened.
Was that true for my grandfather? I can only speculate, born 15 years, as I was, after grandpa died in 1926.
His first name was Herman. Information about him is limited but compelling, as collected by my brother, our family’s faithful historian.
Grandpa’s obituary, published under the headline “Veteran is Buried Tues.,” tells many stories. He died in 1926 at a son’s house in the Town of Springvale, Fond du Lac County, five weeks after suffering a stroke on his way home from the national Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) convention. He was 77.
What was the GAR? Grandpa’s obituary didn’t describe the GAR, a very political fraternal organization of veterans of the Union Army who served in the Civil War. The GAR, similar to mainstream veterans’ groups today, was so influential after its founding in 1866, one year after the Civil War ended, that no Republican was nominated to the presidency without GAR endorsement until 1908.
The obituary continues: “The deceased was born in a log cabin in Oct. 22, 1849 near West Bend.” Wait a minute! If he was born in 1849, how could he have been a Union soldier?
In the next paragraph we learn: “Mr. Giffey’s service in the war was twice refused because of his youth. The first time he enlisted he got to Milwaukee and the second time he was returned from St. Louis. Finally, at the age of 14, he was accepted as a drummer boy. He celebrated his 15th birthday at Appomattox Courthouse (Virginia), where he was on duty. He was a member of Co. I, 17th Wisconsin Volunteers. He participated in Sherman’s march to the sea, and was imprisoned in the Libby prison (Richmond, Virginia) for two months. He was wounded in the leg and captured at the battle of Wilcox Ridge. This wound caused him to limp the rest of his life, and he carried a cane during his last years.”
My brother’s research indicates that our great-grandmother signed a consent form stipulating that her son was 17 years old when, in fact, he wasn’t even 15. She probably received $200 or $300 as a “substitute fee” paid by a conscripted person prosperous enough to pay the fee and avoid military service. That fee could be compared to deferments enjoyed by college students during the Vietnam War. Wealth and military service have long been incompatible.
What could motivate a teenager to so eagerly march off to probable death? Did Herman see himself as freeing the slaves? I doubt it. Probably, as my brother suggested, he was tired of milking cows and the Union army needed bodies.
One hundred years after my grandfather was discharged from service, I was drafted and sent to Vietnam. In the 43 years since I returned from that war, I’ve puzzled over my motives as well. A burning desire to sacrifice myself in order to “keep America free” never entered my thoughts. America wasn’t endangered, as we have learned, by that civil war in Southeast Asia. I went to war under orders. The fact that my name isn’t among the 1.3 million Americans killed outright in wars since 1775 is a matter of pure luck. So, while my heart is emptied at Memorial Day each year at the thought of loved ones grieving for their lost soldiers, I can’t restrain myself from asking: Why war?
With that question in mind, we embarked on another walk last Saturday along part of Highway 14. It was the 140th time since the beginning of the current war in Iraq six years ago that I’ve walked along the road carrying a sign saying “Peace.” The day was pleasant, calm and cloudless. Most people passing by ignored us. A few waved and gave us the peace sign. Fewer still were hostile and gave us half of the peace sign.
Two days later during Memorial Day programs in two River Valley schools I listened to the solemn recitation of hundreds of names of local veterans now dead. The roll calls were long and growing longer.
I’ve heard the term “Nobody wants war” while observing citizens near and far embrace war after war. And I’ve also observed, with wonder, how the word “peace” elicits angry responses. If I could talk to my grandfather, I’d tell him that I think war isn’t inevitable, that peace is attainable and not just another story.
David Giffey is the editor of Long Shadows: Veterans’ Paths to Peace.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A tidal wave of consequences from war
SAT., MAY 23, 2009 - 12:56 PM
By FRANCES WIEDENHOEFT
It recently occurred to me -- abruptly -- that it is 2009.
I am home again, and America has been at war in Iraq for six years.
America has been in Afghanistan for eight years to help stabilize the country and oust the terrorists who are becoming more obscure with each passing week.
I have been home from Iraq for a year, but this return has been a gradual one. The distraction of the previous year left me feeling weak and unavailable to those I love.
One of many tools I have been using to help clear my mind of the debris of my involvement in six years of war is a specific type of therapy at the Veterans Administration mental health clinic. The therapy is useful and helping me. But initially, I was quite skeptical.
The underlying principal of the therapy, as I understand it, is to confront and resolve our internal moral conflicts related to the war. It was difficult for me to grasp how this would work, because I believe that the fundamental nature of war is a moral conflict.
Our American wars, cynics aside, have been fought at least in principle to defend or save a group of people, except that to save this group of people we need to kill another group of people.
To those of us down on the ground, the picture becomes muddled, and our hearts and souls are the casualties. It doesn't surprise me that so many soldiers are committing suicide. It is a testament to the strength of our soldiers and their families that more are not doing so.
The fundamental moral conflict of war to each individual involved is that killing is meant to be disturbing, horrifying to the human soul. Killing the enemy can be intellectually justified, but war is not discreet, and we witness daily, hourly, the civilian deaths, women, children, elders.
Everyone intimately involved in the process, killing, saving lives, is wounded in ways that do not heal. This is the essence of the human cost of war on our soldiers. These moral conflicts are irresolvable, and not easy to make peace with.
So what do we, as a nation, do?
We should take the instrument of war from our national tool bag only as an absolute last resort, after all other measures have been exhausted, and with brutal appraisal of the human cost, including our own soldiers' psyches.
Fortunately, I have the enduring support of family and community, and the benefit of friendship with older veterans of previous conflicts who have generously shared their experience and shown by example that we can learn to live with our ghosts and demons, and have a full life.
We return and try to pass on this tiny bit of hard-earned truth, that once we resort to war we have unleashed a tidal wave of consequences, most unintended, with damage that can't be undone.
We, the veterans, can be a voice, supported by experience, adamantly maintaining the use of war only as a last resort, and not as the primary means to carry out national policy.
(In memory of Sid Podell)
Frances Wiedenhoeft is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve. She served in Desert Storm 1991, Afghanistan 2003, and Iraq 2007-2008. When not on active duty she works as a nurse anesthetist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, enjoys time with her daughter and grandsons, and is active in Chapter 25 Veterans for Peace, and veterans groups to support peace, justice, and the welfare of our returning service members.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
