Re: Hurtgen forest

The point, the point -- here's the relevant part of what Scottie actually
said:

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> Yet from Homer to Tolstoy it's been arma virumque
> all the way. These blokes actually gloried in war, even
> (? especially ?) those who had, like Oliver Wendell Holmes
> actually: 'shared the incommunicable experience of war
> ... have felt - still feel - the passion of life to its top.'
>
> Scottie B.

Scottie -- I didn't see or read any qualifications on the "glory of war"
in your post -- simply this mention of it. You do contextualize it in
European/American attraction to war memoribilia (good connection), and talk
about your own childhood excitement -- the goosebumps -- either associated
with war or with those who went to war (good association).

But otherwise, unqualified praise for the glories of war. Will had a right
to make his comments. Even in your replies to him, you don't qualify your
statements...you only say that he misunderstood you.

You didn't give him _anything_ else to understand.

Then Robbie follows up on Scottie's original quote by asking:

<<Why is war beautiful? Or what is beautiful about it, or to what extent
is
it beautiful?>>

because the subject line comes from an epic he was reading at the time.

This attitude is juxtaposed, in Robbie's post, with _contemporary_
understandings of war that represent it as an _unqualified_ atrocity (in
line with my previous post, actually, so I don't see why he responded as he
did):

<<This was a particularly jarring question, of course, since most all of
the
nineteen- and twenty-year-olds in the room had been raised in post-Vietnam
America, had quite nearly always taken for granted the atrocity of war, and

because we had just learned that we were entering a war without clear
targets or exit strategies that we were aware of, and the males among us
had
rather recently been legally required to register for the draft. Several
of
us, myself included, carry draft cards in our wallets.>>

Robbie goes on to describe his own attraction to war to the point where he
confesses he's considering dual US-Israeli citizenship:

<<And to be entirely honest, the thought of serving in the military is
quite nearly as appealing in the fantasy as having the dual citizenship.
It's still frightening, of course, and I do not think that these thoughts
on war make it much less of a horror. But to chime in with absolute
condemnations of all war, to call it purely dispicable and nothing else,
would make me a liar.>>

He honestly represents it as a male fantasy, but seems to imply that going
to war in Israel is attractive for its own sake, not for the sake of the
worthiness of the goals.

On one level I appreciate the honesty of Robbie's post, its confessional
nature, and the fact that it's making observations about something young
men (but not exclusively young men) quite viscerally _feel_.

On the other hand, it illustrates how totally stupid these feelings are.
Again, I feel the need to point to Rupert Brooke and Company as examples.
These people experienced war. They experienced the feelings, I suspect,
that robbie himself expressed but in retrospect, after experiencing
probably the most brutal war in the 20th century (for the individual
combatant) they also saw this attitude as completely bunk, and _Hated it_
when they saw it in non-combantants back home.

I'm not saying Robbie doesn't see that himself. I'll join the procession
and say I understand these feelings too. But I'm also 17 years past being
21 and have better sense now, too. If I'm going to support the mass
killing of combatants and civilians in either speech or action, it's going
to be for a pretty damn good reason or I'm not going to support it at all.
The cost in human life had _better_ be worth it.

But I am willing to consider that it is indeed worth it sometimes. And
when it is, glory in it without hesitation or regret.

And I do think Will has every right to be distrubed, and don't think he has
misunderstood very much of what has been said so far.

Jim

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