For nearly a decade now many have seemingly invited strife and battle into our lives. Many young, many old, have never learned or have forgot the bloodstained horrors of civil war. They, like those summer soldiers of 1861, have the look of, have the sound of pleading for violent revolution, and they, like the civil warriors of 1861 believe it will all be over and decided by next Christmas. So strong do they believe themselves to be; one marvels at the confidence that only self pride can muster from those who know nothing of war, war up close, cheek by jowl, bleeding into each other. There’s a certain feeling of inevitability about it, as though they have their eyes set of it as a prize that they’ll surely win. Yet, the ending of it all, should it come, will certainly, as do all ravenous conflits, resemble this instead:
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, Voices of play and pleasure after day, Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees, And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,— In the old times, before he threw away his knees. Now he will never feel again how slim Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands, All of them touch him like some queer disease.
There was an artist silly for his face, For it was younger than his youth, last year. Now, he is old; his back will never brace; He’s lost his colour very far from here, Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry, And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg, After the matches carried shoulder-high. It was after football, when he’d drunk a peg, He thought he’d better join. He wonders why. Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts. That’s why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg, Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts, He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg; Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years. Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt, And Austria’s, did not move him. And no fears Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears; Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits. And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal. Only a solemn man who brought him fruits Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes, And do what things the rules consider wise, And take whatever pity they may dole. Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes Passed from him to the strong men that were whole. How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?
“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.” -George Orwell
[I saw his round mouth’s crimson deepen as it fell], Like a Sun, in his last deep hour; Watched the magnificent recession of farewell, Clouding, half gleam, half glower, And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek. And in his eyes The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak, In different skies. –Wilfred Owen (1893-2018)
Nothing could have been less noticeable than the whimper with which the United States claimed it had ended its nearly 10-year Iraq war and occupation. Short of our own Civil War that now is carried forward in the Congress, almost nothing in our history needs more national soul-searching. About Iraq, we hear little but a whimper.
Few expected celebrations. No ticker-tape rained down from the New York City’s Canyon of Heroes. None is expected to; the Pentagon has not been ordered to plan one. The troops themselves and their long-suffering loved ones fell into each other’s arms, though, as in all wars’ ends before. Now quickly follows an unspoken, “Where next”? “When”?
Have we learned enough of this war’s genesis to come away with anything resembling wisdom at our exodus? What did we learn from Vietnam? Little but the value of deploying overwhelming force on a battlefield of our own choosing under our own cold war rules. Like the British we fought in our professional way, the world outside of our own strategic box did not always cooperate. Unlike Vietnam, a victory retreat in overfilled helos barely able to gain airspeed enough to leave the roof of the Green Zone HQ was not broadcast for all to see.
In fact, some expressed disdain at our departure. Absent Ron Paul, GOP presidential candidates were uniformly opposed to ending our occupation.
From the non-stop media, virtually nothing is said of the beginning, the craven dishonesty throughout the Bush administration, their bullying of national security agencies, the dismissal and criminalizing of dissent. No mention of the media’s early supplication that continues today.
The silence is resounding. The GOP presidential candidates far and wide decry the decision to leave. The assumption throughout our national meditation on this war, if anything at all, revolves around what we accomplished there as we move on from a thoroughly disjointed country and its downtrodden people, hundreds of thousands fewer that when we arrived. And the lifelong physical and emotional injuries will starve Iraq’s spirit for multiple decades to come.
“I was never actually looking for adventure, it just came to me.” Frank Buckles, the “Last Doughboy,” 2008 interview The Associated Press
“When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. . .” Ernest Hemingway, Men at War. As you’ll read, Frank Buckles – World War One’s last doughboy – was adept at the kind of understatement in his quote above. In his remarkable 110 years, Frank Buckles made understatement his art form. Although, it’s true, he did slip up occasionally, like when he was 16 and overstated his age to enlist to fight in the Great War. But his claim that he was “not looking for adventure” is one of his more memorably conservative self-appraisals. And, beginning last week, “adventure” came calling again, despite his quiet passing in West Virginia on February 27th. Gone, Frank Buckles, U.S. Army Corporal, 1st Fort Riley Casual [unassigned] Detachment, in death, the last American to have served in the Great War, the War of the Nations, the “war to end war.”
To Corporal Buckles’ great disappointment, though, he never served on the front lines of the western front, but not for lack of trying: he once jokingly said, “Didn’t I make every effort?” The record bears him out. As an ambulance driver behind the lines in 1918, Buckles had been distant from the worst of the fighting in the Marne valley. With succinct understatement, however, he remembered, “I saw the results.” Perhaps underneath his modesty, he recalled much the same vision that inspired World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon, to write:
Do You Remember The Stretcher-Cases Lurching Back With Dying Eyes And Lolling Heads–Those Ashen-Grey Masks Of The Lads Who Once Were Keen And Kind And Gay? Have You Forgotten Yet?… Look Up, And Swear By The Green Of The Spring That You’ll Never Forget.
Insult and Injury. The unnecessary controversy continues over whether or not Frank W. Buckles, America’s last WWI veteran, ought to lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. It brings with it a bad taste, bordering on disgust. Our nation’s two congressional leaders are embarrassing themselves, and for no good reason. Since this began a few days ago, neither Speaker of the House John Boehner nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, both of whom must sign off on the proposal, have been forthright (or courageous) enough to explain their reasoning, if any. If they are invertebrates on something like this, so reliant on spokespersons to do their talking, to do their dirty work . . . well, it’s very un-Frank Buckles, to say the very least. If their attitude signifies a royal decree, perhaps they hope public distaste will fade as discussions of budgets, spending cuts, and Charlie Sheen’s return to tv this week. But I don’t think we ought to let Charlie Buckles down.
The Persistence of Memory. Remember Mr. Speaker, your solemn words just four months ago Veterans Day 2010: “Today, we pause to pay proper respect to the heroes who have donned the uniform of our country and — along with their families — sacrificed so much so that we may enjoy the blessings of freedom.”
Reid’s negative position is difficult to understand as well. His record on veterans affairs is distinguished. The sight of Boehner and Reid digging in their feet on this when they can agree on almost nothing else is, to put it mildly, surprising, bordering on mysterious and foolish. There’s just got to be a principle or two lurking here, particularly since this issue is embarrassing to both leaders. Perhaps they don’t realize this? Considering their own silence on this, all we can do is speculate, and comment on some possibilities.
The “Not Just Anyone” Test. First, gentlemen, we all understand that “not just anyone” may be accorded the signal national tribute of lying in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Agreed. No argument there. And in truth, I don’t believe this issue motivates Boehner or Reid, but it should. Surely Frank Buckles represents more than an individual. He represents the literal last soldier of a generation – the more than four and a half million U.S. WWI veterans, two million of whom served in combat on the killing grounds called battlefields of that unthinkably cruel war. From mid-1917 to the armistice on November 11, 1918, more than 115,000 Americans died, and nearly 400,000 were wounded standing duty as the German army launched their last offensive to win the war. As the final representative of that group of men and women, Frank Buckles, both the man and the icon, passes the “not just anybody” test with colors flying.
The Floodgate Test. Of course, there may be more requests for this illustrious honor. Yet, as far as precedent is concerned, should Frank Buckles be awarded this singular homage, how many others in future will be able to meet the very precedent Corporal Buckles would thereby set? Yes, in years to come, the last U.S. veteran of all our wars will pass away, from World War 2 to Korea to Vietnam to Persian Gulf to Afghanistan. Using the precedent of Frank Buckles, should he or she be allowed to lay in honor in the Rotunda, each too will indeed have a valid call on the same tribute based upon the “Frank Buckles precedent.” And, my larger point is, they ought to lay in honor, just as Frank Buckles ought to lay in honor, and each, in turn, set precedent for all who follow. It’s a precedent we all can live with.
As years grow into decades – and in Frank Buckles’ case, decades expanded to nearly a century – our nation needs reminders of a glorious past where courage overtook fear. The First World War brought carnage unthinkable in prior history, but within the expanding industrial revolution, horrors were unleashed with devastating weapons, munitions, tanks, and artillery; the subversion of chemistry and physics produced mustard gas, phosgene, and chlorine; the elements themselves combined with trench warfare conditions to kill tens of thousands through exposure and disease; and let’s not overlook the often careless and craven leadership on all sides that sent thousands to their deaths in senseless charge after charge through barbed wire and mud directly into enemy machine guns and grenades.
Let The Memories Persist. The Great War is a war to be remembered, and often, and to the extent that Frank Buckles reminds us of the suffering and bravery and senselessness of the “war to end war,” he will serve as a learning moment for us all. It’s the kind of service Corporal Frank Buckles (1911-2011) undertook in 1918, and later in life as he stood often to propose a permanent WWI memorial in Washington, D.C. Laying in honor is an honor he would not have sought, but in his understated way, it’s one that “Pershing’s Last Patriot” would have quietly appreciated.
