Re:war vs. anti-war.

RFertel@AOL.COM
Wed, 3 Sep 1997 10:40:21 -0400 (EDT)

Miles writes in response to Penny:

>The tragedy is that they all died in vain.

Well, after a long conciliatory post, Miles here seems to put his foot in
it again. I know there is a sense in which what he says is so; it is the
sense Wilfred Owen had in mind when he asked, "what passing-bells for
those who die as cattle?" In teaching that poem I offer my students a
continuum of consolations that stretch from on one side "winning a just
war, a good fight," to on the other side, "losing an unjust war." The
difficulty of finding consolation for the last is obvious at first
glance. But when you realize that on the same continuum are such
permutations as these:

"lost a bad fight but did your damnedest for your buddies and felt
personally transformed by the experience"

then you see that perhaps there are ways of living and dieing where the
politics of your life and death doesn't _wholly_ shape or determine that
death's meaning. Especially if you die knowing the politics of your
fight suck and yet you fight beside your buddies for their sake (a common
theme in Vietnam fiction and memoirs: see Caputo's A Rumor of War, Bill
Ehrhart's [yes that Bill] Vietnam-Perkaisie, even James Webb's Fields of
Fire).

My point is that Miles' statement is true only from the political point
of view. And yet we live and die on many levels. If the goal of our
life, say, is to achieve some personal transformation that takes us to
some level higher than we were yesterday, that involves perhaps wrenching
us outside our puny little selves so that we see and appreciate the
people around us, then who knows, who can say, the vanity of each and
every death on that wall. This Joseph Campbell stuff I'm spouting may
sound pretty onanistic besides the grit of politics -- after all, while
GI Joe Campbell is having his transformation many more Viets than
Americans are dieing. But I'm _not_ saying the politics goes away. I'm
just saying politics isn't everything. Miles finally is right that it's
all tragic. With that I don't disagree. To achieve a personal
transformation at such cost is tragic.

BTW, my argument cuts the other way too. For the vets (and the Pennies)
who argue that the meaning of their service was determined by their good
intentions and their love of comradeship, and their good works helping
Viets in hospitals and orphanages and whatnot, the reply is the same: it
wasn't just personal it was also political. Heroic personal effort in a
bad cause is still in a bad cause. Still, Miles, it was heroic personal
effort too.

In sum, we have to hold both these in our minds (and "simple" won't help
at all) as we try to do honor to the warriors whose war we American
voters were the makers of.

"Simple" also doesn't work when you apply Miles' dictum, "warriors are
wrong," to such warriors as Ron Ridenhour who blew the whistle on My Lai,
or Hugh Thompson who tried to stop the massacre. What use is such a
dictum if it has to be withdrawn for so many instances? Simple thinking
is never helpful.

Randy

Here's Owen's poem. Note that his answer is certainly not that there
deaths were utterly vain: they were not vain if _we_ are transformed. An
old theme.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle ?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Randy Fertel
Tulane University
6120 Perrier St.
New Orleans LA 70118
rfertel@aol.com
504-891-1759 (phone/fax)