War, Peace, and Veterans

Sermon by Stephen D. Edington, November 8, 1998

In recalling experiences from my teenage years, I find the further I get from many of them the less precise my memories are of just what happened when. But some, nonetheless, have remained quite clear; like the camping trip I went on with my Scout troop in the summer of 1961. Each summer our Scoutmaster, Mr. Roberts, took our troop on a week-long camp-out in an area of a national forest in southern West Virginia. By the summer of '61, at age 16, I was among the older guys in the troop. We called ourselves the "Senior Patrol" and we'd developed a certain been-here-done-that kind of swagger to our step. So, sitting around the fire one night, we older guys were the ones who began urging Mr. Roberts to tell us some of his war stories. Jim Roberts (he was always "Mr. Roberts" to us) was a Marine combat veteran of the Korean War, and on some of our camping trips he would tell a story or two about being in that conflict. They were mostly in a lighthearted vein, having to do with the bad food they had to eat, or about some of the more colorful characters that had been in his platoon. So our requests for stories that night were along the lines of "Tell us about that time in Korea when such and such happened..." It was our way of showing off to the younger guys just how much we'd been around; we even knew the Scoutmaster's war stories. And since we weren't that far removed from games of "playing army" with neighborhood friends, we were pretty impressed to have a troop leader who'd fought in a real, honest-to-goodness war.

Mr. Roberts was in an obliging mood. He started off in an easy going manner, repeating some of the more humorous episodes that some of us had heard before. But the more he talked the more sober sounding he became; and those of us who thought we'd heard 'em all began to realize he was taking a direction he hadn't gone in before. His stories became ones about having to walk on seemingly endless marches where he said that the only thing keeping him going was seeing the legs of the guy in front of him still moving forward. He talked of the fear of not knowing if he'd live to see another day; of how at night the shape of a tree or bush took on the appearance of North Korean fighter getting ready to kill him. He told of a buddy stepping on a land mine not too far from where he himself had just been walking and being practically blown to bits. It was as if something had clicked in Mr. Roberts' mind and he decided, well if you fellows want war stories, I'll give you some real war stories. I remember how we began to get scared; and it wasn't the kind of scared you get from hearing ghost stories where you expect and actually want to be frightened, and even enjoy it. We were scared because we were seeing a side of our Scoutmaster, and hearing about a side of war, that we'd never been exposed to before.

Mr. Roberts was a very responsible leader, though, and I guess he caught himself at some point and realized he'd gotten in deeper on this war story business than he'd meant to. So he finished up with whatever episode he was recounting and then said, "Well, I guess that's enough for tonight, guys." But then before anybody could get up to leave he added, "Let's have a word of prayer." A word of prayer? Our ex-marine war combat veteran wanted us to stand up and pray? Mr. Roberts was not someone to argue with; we stood up and bowed our heads. He kept it short and to the point, asking God that no more such wars would ever have to be fought. He prayed for peace as he further asked of the Almighty that none of us standing there would ever have to live through the kinds of experiences he'd just described. Then we went off to bed. It was a long time before we asked him for any more stories about Korea.

I've lost track of practically all of the guys who were on that particular trip. But I know what happened to two of them. One was killed in Vietnam when a bulldozer he was operating to clear a road through a jungle flipped over on him. Another one lost his legs in battle during the same conflict. Mr. Roberts' short prayer was one of the most earnest and heartfelt ones I believe I've ever heard. It was offered up even as the embryonic stages of yet another war were developing that would take its terrible toll as well, reaching clear into that circle of us who stood around a fire on a clear summer night during our teenage years.

Among the many life blessings I count at this stage of my life is that closest I've ever come to learning about some of the real terrors involved in actually fighting a war have come second-hand from the stories like the ones I heard on that evening in the summer of 1961. Two years later I was off to college. By attending first college and then theological school from 1963 to 1971 I was never called for military service during the most divisive war, with respect to public opinion, in which this country has ever engaged.

The Vietnam War had a reality of its own for me in that I found something of a community among those who felt they could not in good conscience support it. My most vivid memory from that era is again standing and listening to a prayer for peace. This one was offered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. near the tomb of the unknown soldier during a large gathering in Washington, D.C. of an organization called Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam with which I'd become involved. But since I'd known and grown up with some of the young men who were fighting that war, my opposition to our involvement in it was never directed at them.

We are rapidly approaching the end of what many historians call the "American Century"; and a case can certainly be made for that designation. I doubt the 21st century will be given the same one. But none of us will be around a hundred years from now to know anyway. But if the past hundred years have in fact been the American Century, its a century that is ending with Americans looking to come to terms with the legacies of two wars: The Second World War and the Southeast Asian/Vietnamese War. Perhaps a more accurate way to put it would be to say that we end this century trying to somehow reconcile the conflicting legacies of these two conflicts. So I want to pursue a couple of paths along this line with you this morning. I want to make an attempt at reconciling these two legacies; and, with Veterans Day coming up this Wednesday, I want to say why I think those who experienced each of these wars from the "Mr. Roberts' eye view" that my old Scoutmaster had of the Korean War, are owed our gratitude and respect.

If we use Hollywood as a indicator, World War II appears to be where the action is right now when it comes to movie themes. Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" (and I'll focus on it momentarily) is, according to a recent Newsweek magazine article only the first wave of its genre; six other WW II movies are in the works. As to why this is happening now, WW II historian Steven Ambrose--who was the historical consultant for the Spielberg film--suggests that since by now the generals who planned and carried out that war have all passed on, it is the enlisted men who were in their late teens and early 20s at the time of D-Day who are now seeing the story of that war told from their perspective. Earlier films about this War were largely thematic, i.e. This is how we conquered fascism. The theme was not a false one, but it had a kind of omniscient aura to it. The focus was on the "Big Picture" as it were. As the Newsweek piece puts it: "Now history is at last being told not from the perspective of the White House or to the rhythm of Churchillian cadences...but from the foxholes and hedgerows." The article further suggests that those who saw WW II from the foxholes and hedgerows are now, in the later stages of their lives, ready to have their story told where earlier they had been reluctant to talk that much about it, or see it so graphically depicted.

"Saving Private Ryan" is very much in keeping with this approach. If you can stomach the first 20-30 minutes of it, which show the first wave of soldiers coming onto Normandy Beach on D-Day, then you should be good for the next couple of hours. The opening scenes are one bloody slaughter, and very hard to watch. As briefly as I can make it, the story line goes like this: A small platoon of soldiers, led by a Captain played by Tom Hanks, make it safely ashore at Normandy and help set up the beachhead there. They are then sent on a special mission to locate a Private James Ryan. When General George Marshall learns that Ryan's three brothers have already been killed in action elsewhere he decides to have this one surviving brother pulled out of combat and sent home so that his already widowed mother will not be completely bereft of family. Private Ryan is in a unit that had parachuted in behind the lines in France to help prepare the way for the Allies once they begin their march across Europe. About half of the film has to do with how this small band of soldiers, of differing backgrounds, moods, and temperments interact with each other as they make their search.

They finally find Private James Ryan, who is part of a unit holed up in a demolished French village where they are anticipating the arrival of a well-equipped German force. The mission of the Americans is to hold the village and keep its bridge from being destroyed, so it can serve as a waystation for the Allies when they make their move. When Private Ryan learns of the fate of his brothers, and of the order from the top for him to go home, he refuses to leave his unit, figuring that his life warrants no more protection than those of the others he's with. James Ryan is this plain, honest, fairminded guy from Iowa and he says he ain't goin'. Not wishing to send Ryan on a forced march, Tom Hanks, as the Captain of his small outfit, elects to keep his men there in the village and help prepare for its defense. The rest of the movie deals with how these "GI Joes" ready themselves for the attack which they know will inevitably come. For those of you who have not seen it, I won't give away the outcome for you.

What gives this film its power, and its something I know I cannot adequately convey here, is how Spielberg shows both the simple and the complex humanity of the soldiers involved. These foot soldiers don't really have the "big picture." They're just doing what they have to do and trying not to get killed or wounded in the process; and they're trying not to do anything stupid that will cost one of their fellow soldiers his life. Yes, they want to defeat Hitler, but if they see themselves as part of some noble cause they scarcely show it. "The Cause" is almost beside the point; their ultimate objective is to get safely home alive and in one whole piece. And some do; and some don't. Such is the nature of war; and war is hell. This is not new information. But this film tells an ordinary truth in a very extraordinary way.

In our history books this is the "Good War" in which we checkmated the spread of Nazism. That gets no argument from me. I have do every kind of respect and admiration for those who were conscientious objectors in WW II. Some of them happen to be among my UU ministerial colleagues--now well into their retirement. I also feel that my father and one of my uncles did the right thing by serving in that conflict, and I'm proud of them for it. They're both now deceased. They each survived the war, and came home and lived out their lives, and raised their families. My father even came home with a British bride--to say nothing of a son. [Well, lets not "say nothing" of that son; you're looking at him after all.]

So I have no question that those who fought the Second World War merit our honor and respect. What I have come to question is how well those who lived and charted our nation's course in the aftermath of that war understood and appropriated its legacy. Last winter I gave a sermon called "Deadly Virtue" in which I said that even being on the side of that which is right and virtuous can also be a trap if one isn't careful about drawing the wrong lesson from being right. I called that trap "deadly virtue." This trap, as I went onto say, can apply to nations as well as to individuals and I cited an observation from Kurt Vonnegut in making that point. Its so germane to what I'm now trying to say that I'm going to use it again. Vonnegut, too, was an infantryman in the Second World War and even spent time as a prisoner of war in Dresden at the time of the Allied bombing of that city. Here's his observation on the aftermath of World War II: "It was (in one sense) very bad for us... Our enemies were so awful, so evil, that we, by contrast, must be remarkably pure. That illusion of purity, to which we were entitled in a way, (also became) our curse."

These are strong words, indeed, but Vonnegut makes a tough and telling point. It was this "illusion of purity" as he calls it that at least helped make possible the McCarthy era and the grievous excesses of the House Committee on Un-Americna Activities. In defeating the evil of Nazism we did tend to see ourselves as inviolate; and, therefore, any criticism of any domestic or foreign policy was regarded as un-American, and those making such criticism were fair game for not being taken seriously, or listened to, or--at worse--having their careers destroyed. It was this illusion of purity, I feel, that only 20 years after the Second World War had ended, landed us in Vietnam. In his book In Retrospect former Secretary of Defense, Robert MacNamara makes a very telling point along this line early on in the text. He points out that in the name--or under the ideology--of anti-communism, our State Department during the 1950s was, in effect, purged of many of those individuals who had some sound insights into the social, political, economic, and nationalistic dynamics and aspirations in Southeast Asia and China. Their absence, due to their alleged lack of ideological purity, in turn, contributed to our lack of understanding of the rhythms and politics of nationalism and self-determination that were afoot in that part of the world. There was no one in the State Department who could give our policy makers a clear read on what was really happening in Southeast Asis. The result was that we indiscriminately lumped all that nationalistic sentiment and ferment under the term "communism" and then embarked upon a supposedly moral crusade to eradicate it. And again, young Americans fought under horrendously terrifying conditions even as their fathers had.

In World War II we were forced to confront an evil that very well could have enslaved a good part of the globe. We met that challenge well. In Vietnam, however, we were finally forced to confront ourselves, as a nation. We were forced to confront the hard truth that believing so strongly and so unquestioningly and so uncritically in the rightness of ourselves and our cause can bring upon us very tragic consequences of its own. It cost us thousands of very fine men and women to learn that lesson. Their lives, and the lives of those who did come home from that conflict, are as worthy of our honor and respect as all the others we will remember on this Wednesday.

I said at the outset that I was looking to reconcile the legacies of these two conflicts. it's's not something, I've decided, that can be neatly done in the manner of tying it all up in a nicely closed package. This is about as close as I can come: The Second World War demonstrated for us the power we indeed have when it comes to shaping the events and the directions of the world in which we live. For better or for worse, it made us a superpower. The Vietnamese War showed us that we are not immune from the sin of hubris, which is to say, misappropriated pride. The tragic irony of these two legacies is that being so right in World War II actually set us up to be so wrong in Vietnam.

But lets come back now from the lessons to the lives behind them. One other thing the Vietnamese War taught us, up-close-and-personal in a way that no other war had, is that for all the philosophizing, and for all the rhetoric about what a war "means", it primarily means that human lives are placed in the breach. It was television that showed us those lives being placed in the breach in a way that we hadn't seen in any previous war. The Newsweek article to which I've already referred suggested, and I agree, that it is because Vietnam made war so graphically real to us, that films portraying the gritty reality of the Second World War are now being made. To quote just a couple of lines: "The men who were in the field salute the filmmaker's candor...The vets want it told like it was...For decades many old soldiers, now in their 70s and 80s, were reluctant to discuss the war with their own families. But in the twilight of their lives, they are speaking up."

The final scene in "Saving Private Ryan" is a real three-hanky job; which Spielberg somehow, and to his credit, manages to pull off without sloshing over into a manipulative kind of sentimentality. Its actually a continuation of the movie's opening scene where an aging, gray-haired James Ryan, in the present day, walks among the seemingly endless rows of crosses and stars of David above the bluffs of Normandy Beach on the coast of France. His wife and grown children walk a few paces behind him. In the last scene Mr. James Ryan, by now a long-time civilian, finds the marker for the Captain who'd been sent to bring him home and who ended up staying with him and his unit to help defend their post. He stands there trying to deal with all the emotions that over a half a century of memory bring upon him. His wife takes a couple of steps toward him and he turns to her and says, "Tell me I've lived a good life." James Ryan knows he'd been given the opportunity to live his life out in a way that so many others were not; and he needs to know that it was an opportunity he did not waste or squander: "Tell me I've lived a good life." I imagine anyone who has come safely home from a war could connect with such a scene as that. I also think that those of us who have never had our lives placed in the breach by war would do well to appreciate the depth of meaning behind such a simple statement as that.

The lives we each and all have, for the length of time in which we have them, are sacred and precious and holy. May we always regard and treat them as such, along with all those lives which touch our own.

Copyright © 1998 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.