Who is this Roughstuff guy, anyway??
I was born in 1953, the year the Korean War ended. Growing up as a kid, the Korean War was the war that i spent alot of time reading about. I know this sounds odd to you Generation X'ers and others dumbed down to the moron level by our public schools, but back then people actually read books that had a paragraphs longer than one sentence, words longer than one syllable, articles longer than one page, and opinions from more than one person. So it was that i, somewhat precociously i must admit, first learned about the Korean War in my early teens when i got a hold of my older brother's high school History books.
From the beginning i was amazed at the rapid turn of fortunes witnessed by both sides, as the front lines swept down to Pusan, swiftly back to the Yalu, and bogged down for years near the original 38th parallel. In contrast to the Vietnam War--still a distant, but growing, rumble on the political scene-- the Korean War seemed to be a clear cut case of conflict, with the 'good guys' on one side, 'bad guys' on the other, and a front between them.
Like most kids i grew up reading about WWII and in my case the Korean War also, and i think like many boys the military--with its adventure and drama and heroism-- held me spellbound. Of course this romantic and unrealistic view of warfare would eventually be punctured, but during those years it was intact. I often sat on my front steps with my best friend Raymond, talking about the Vietnam War and how it could best be won.
One early autumn afternoon, when we were both high school sophomores and thought we knew everything and the world was waiting for us, and that we could change things just by the simple act of discussing them, we sat on the front steps debating the virtues and vices of bombing Hanoi. Actually it was not a debate, for we both felt bombing Hanoi was just the greatest idea since the D-day landings. We spent a good hour preaching to our converted selves-- the UN general assembly still thrives on similar rhetoric-- whipping ourselves into a frenzy over the merits and morality and finality of such a tactic. Little did we know that my dad, who was a WWII vet and spent many months in France, Germany and Austria in the war's final European offensives, sat in a chair listening, thru the window above us. Actually he probably wasn't listening; more likely the nascent warmongers outside had distracted his attention from the baseball scores in the newspaper he was reading. In any case, as a frontline soldier he knew well the cost in blood, bone and soul that was shed on behalf of armchair generals and righteous politicians far removed from the battle zone. Perhaps it was his intention to set us on a better path; perhaps he just wanted us to stop talking and mow the lawn, which is why Raymond had come over to help me to begin with. Whatever the reason on that distant autumn day, he raised the screen, and said words that have stayed with me for 3 decades:
"Gentlemen...if you think the Vietnam war is such a good idea the recruiting office is right on your way home from school."
Now, i don't know what effect this had on Raymond--he was kind of a big buffoon, and we went separate ways shortly after--but it sure threw me for a loop. Almost instantly i realized how easy it was to say things that could really affect the lives of thousands of others. More cogently, i learned how easy it is to play the most deadly game in history: lets you and him fight. Here i was, 10,000 miles and years away from any threat, any danger, any knowledge of what combat was all about, saying with simplistic conviction that someone else's son should put themselves in the line of fire to drop a couple of bombs on a capital city. How simple. How grand. How tough! And how tragically fatal to many of those whom i, and others with similar simplicity, dispatch and deploy to spill blood in strange, alien and distant lands.
Fast forward now about 5 years. My freshman year in college, fall of 1971. The college deferment system--always nothing more than just a way to make sure America's beautiful boys didn't go to the war and those blue collar vocational kids ['they are so UGH!!!!' i remember one of my high school's prissy cheerleaders saying] did-- was coming unraveled and the system was replaced with a lottery. AS IT TURNED OUT, i GOT NUMBER 196 AND WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DRAFTED, ANYWAY...THE WAR WAS WINDING DOWN BY THEN. But i wanted to make a decision, and a statement about the war and my view on wars in general, BEFORE, not after, i got my number. I knew then...as a young adult, that i would have to live with and defend whatever decision i made. But i wanted to make my decision for the record my final status was known. That way there if my number was high, i could't run around with a sigh of relief and say "well, i would have gone if my number was low enough to be taken!!!" To be more blunt, I couldn't pull a Bill Clinton: loathing the military but oh-so-willing to use it 30 years later. In contrast, if my number was low, and i decided to oppose the war, people couldn't say "well, now that its your life on the line you turn into a pacifist!" I wanted my decision to be based on careful thought and logic...not the lucky fall of events. Made up in ADVANCE...and willing to deal with the consequences of that choice...whatever they might be.
"Perhaps they were right" said the young King Arthur.
"No" replied the magician, sharply. "There is one good reason to go to war, and that is, if the other fellow starts it. You see, wars are a wickedness, perhaps the greatest wickedness of a wicked species, and they must not be allowed. If you can be sure the other guy started it, then a case can be made that it is moral and right for you to go to war and stop him."
"But each side always says the other side started it!" said Sir Kay.
"Correct, and it is well that they should," answered the magician. "At least that shows they know, in the depth of your wicked hearts, that the real evil of war is its beginning. You will know the one who started the war by the one who lands the first blow."
Sir Kay persisted. "It seems to me this first blow standard is a tough thing to determine. What if one country brings its army to the border; the other must. What if one army makes a feint. The other must. What if one soldier were to fire on fear? Would not the others reply?"
"Oh, go stick your head in a bucket," chortled the magician. "I didn't say all wars could be decided thus. But in 99% of cases the one who makes the first blow is as plain as a pike staff! In your example it would be the one who first brought their army to the border. "
"But" the King attempted to add something. Merlyn was not finished.
"And if you can't see clearly who was the initial aggressor, than go ahead and be a pacifist by all means! I was one once as a boy, during my country's involvement in the Boer war......." .....
I went into this lengthy digression about King Arthur and Vietnam because i was always consumed with the morality, as well as reality, of war. Most people are one, or the other. We have the Clinton types--the old, pot smoking tie die college coffee house standouts-- who think war is just so immoral and outrageous that they remove themselves (and their sons and daughters) from it as far as possible. But they sure do seem willing to send someone else's kids to do the dirty work.
On the other hand we have your grizzlied combat veterans of the World Wars, Korea, and maybe Vietnam jarheads who have no room for the moral imperatives; the task is to fight, and off they go. They forget that the issue of whether the war was right to fight has to be settled first--not last. Perhaps, like the spunky stud to our left, they forgot what an undeclared war can and is all about, and seem perfectly willing to send your sons and daughters to learn the lesson they have not. Declare war?? What you say? .
I am making a plea here that everyone should try and see the morality of both positions: to realize that some wars need to be fought as a matter or moral imperative (WWII comes to mind); that some wars should never have been fought since the moral issues were so unclear (Vietnam comes to mind); that if you feel the war should be fought, pick up a rifle and go yourself--or don't force someone else to go in your place.
Now of course, I realize this is sort of impractical. In reality it makes sense for a 55 year old WWII vet to argue that 'he went and did his job, now its your turn son" when the next war arrives. A crucial flaw in this argument (which has complete merit in all other respects) is that WWII was a war which was declared: Congress and the American people felt the moral issues and threats to national/international security were such that we exercised one of the nastiest rights of a sovereign state. Compare that with these tangos we have had into Somalia, Grenada, Bosnia and the middle east. With each passing year, with each new overseas adventure, the constitutional requirement for congress to authorize and declare war recedes further and further from the public mind. Tonkin and other resolutions are NOT, i repeat NOT, declarations of war.
I'll end this page with a final challenge to those who feel I am largely spineless and spent years, pages, and arguments cloaking it in a fog of words. You have enough backbone to declare war, and I'll go! Of course I am 44, couldn't shoot my foot off if I had to..but hey, these things can be overcome! I won't hold my breath waiting for that congressional declaration-- because most of you reading this don't know a flying fuck about the US constitution. At this rate within a generation the UN will be able to send Amerikan forces anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
