War Stories

Regular readers know I’m not a big fan of television. So much of the programming on American television is banal, mind numbing tripe, and I often wonder how it is that we can be a world superpower and still find ourselves satisfied to be spoon fed so-called “reality” shows and think it’s good entertainment. Now, before you haul off and call me an uppity snob, I want to be the first to say that there is a time and a place for mindless distractions. Those of us in the working class need and deserve a little time spent watching contrived sitcoms or inane game shows, if only to allow us a brief escape from the ennui of daily routines. Sometimes it’s good to forget about how difficult life can be, if only for a little while, and I certainly wouldn’t begrudge anyone that small luxury. Fortunately, all of television isn’t a glaring, blaring miasma of idiocy; every so often I’ll see something on the box that renews my faith in the intelligence of Americans, and sometimes, I’ll see something that really moves me. This week has been one of those times when I am actually glad I have a television set.

I have sung the praises of PBS in the past, and I’m happy to say that it is one of the few channels I can receive. I have been watching the new Ken Burns documentary called simply, “The War” this week, and if you haven’t been watching it, you’re really missing something. With each episode, I am struck with many different emotions, and I won’t bore you with them right now. Suffice to say that for the first time in my life, I have been literally moved to tears by television.

I don’t know if it’s the current war we’re engaged in or if it’s because I’ve been living alone for so long, or if my emotional stirrings are due to the frank yet powerfully poignant style of the presentation of the documentary, but I do know that I found it very difficult to watch the show without feeling a connection to the stories and lives of people who lived so long ago. Since the dawn of the written word, and later, with motion pictures, war stories have been told and retold to the point where most people simply don’t realize what a horrific event a war is. Epic poems and Hollywood tell the tales mostly from the winner’s point of view, and it is a rare occasion that we hear the human side of the story. As I watched the documentary, I found myself thinking about wars in general, and I decided that it doesn’t matter if you were a member of the axis or the allies, the Normans or the Saxons, the Viet Cong or the Americans. Lost in the stories of political victories and defeats are the human stories. It doesn’t matter if the combatants were tunnel rats in Vietnam or infantry at the Battle of Hastings: The fact remains that no matter which side you were on, there were women and children waiting helplessly for the inevitable bad news.

“The War” tells a story of World War 2 that focuses on how the cataclysmic struggle of 1938-1945 affected four small American towns. Hometown boys from Main Street went off to the far corners of the world to fight the enemy; many of them never returned, and many that did were maimed and broken, both physically and mentally. In many ways, World War 2 is looked upon with a sort of nostalgic wistfulness, but the naiveté of the soldiers is a timeless factor in the endless endeavor we call war. Spurred by patriotism, our boys (and girls) fight to preserve the way of life we think is right, and there can be no doubt that there are those who would take that way from us and impose their will upon the weak and helpless (or unarmed). “The War” illustrates that point perfectly.

I thought long and hard as I wrote this, and have re-edited it several times. I found myself going off on tangents that have been beaten to death by authors much more experienced than myself. The simple fact is that until there are no longer men who would subjugate peace loving people, war is, in every sense, a necessary evil. Many of the testimonials given in Burns’ documentary expressed frustration and a lack of understanding as to why they were on the other side of the world, fighting and dying for what they perceived as a politician’s war. When the Nazi concentration camps were liberated, however, those in Europe saw first hand the true reason for their presence. Much is made of the Jewish experience, and rightly so, but keep in mind that the Nazis killed almost double the six million Jews; homosexuals, handicapped, gypsies, Russians and other prisoners, all guilty of an accident of birth fell victim to Hitler’s voracious killing machine. In the Pacific theater, the Japanese war machine, although not as blatantly murderous as the Nazis, was equally adept at dividing and conquering, and had both sides been able to achieve their goals, one can only surmise that the end result would have been a war between the two factions for control of the world. They were allies, but only as long as it benefited them. They would surely have turned on each other; they knew no other way, and for a reason that baffles me, they could not see that.

As I said, the show moved me, even though the events were so long ago that within another decade or so, there will not be one veteran of that conflict left alive. Modern events, though, assure us that there will always be more inductees into the veteran’s organizations, and it makes me literally weep for our kind. We do great things, but we also do horrible things to each other. Our propensity for good needs to overcome our desire for power, and until it does, we will need a crop of young men to feed our absurd bloodlust. The key to stopping wars between men is really very simple: Every people of the earth must not allow themselves to be led by the ignorant, nor be duped into believing that wrong is right. The “golden rule” must apply to everyone, or it means nothing. The veterans of every war know that, and we should be thankful to them for being forced to learn the lesson that so many of us know by heart but do not fully understand. We need to hear their stories so that the day will come when all we have left of war IS old stories.