BROOKINGS – “ ... and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, ... neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
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BROOKINGS – “ ... and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, ... neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
The greatest and most terrible war the world had ever seen – “the war to end all wars” – ended 100 years ago at 11 a.m. on 11/11/1918.
The prophet’s words would not be fulfilled. Barely two decades later, the world would move into an even greater war. Both warstook America’s warriors into combat far from their native shores.
Five years after World War II (September 1939-September 1945) ended, the Korean War began and lasted three years. (Actually, it never officially ended. There was an armistice signed in 1953 but never a peace treaty.)
The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that following the Korean War, veterans service organizations, noting that Armistice Day was set aside to honor those who served in World War I, lobbied for striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting “Veterans” in its place to honor all veterans and not just those who died in World War I.
Despite the Korean War’s end 60-plus years ago, the peninsula remains on edge with two armed camps separated by the DMZ. In what would be a worse than worst-case scenario, President Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
Still to come were Vietnam, the first Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on Terrorism. Today, in uniform, our finest young men and women are again deployed around the globe, in many instances serving in wars that appear to have no end.
An opinion piece, “America’s endless, invisible wars,” by DamonLinker in the Dec. 28, 2017, issue of “The Week” magazine noted that American forces are “currently at war in (at least) seven countries across the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Pakistan.
“Our wars are fought thousands of miles from American shores with an all-volunteer force drawn from a tiny percentage of the population,” he continued. “Meanwhile, the country has spent the astonishing sum of $250 million a day on war-making for each of the nearly 6,000 days since the 9/11 attacks 16 years ago. Instead of raising taxesto pay for it, Congress has cut taxes, insulating the American people entirely from the cost. Other people fight, other people suffer, other people pay – it’s a recipe for political ignorance. All the American people know is that there hasn’t been another 9/11.”
The all-volunteer force Linker cites totals just over 2 million men and women (1.3 million on active duty and 800,000 in the reserve) out of the United States population of more than 325 million people.
Over the past few years, as I wrote an introduction to each annual Veterans Day edition that runs in the Register, I experienced what Yogi Berra called “déjà vu allover again.” In 2011, I asked, “Is there any end ahead for the ‘Long War’?”
Last year, I noted that the United States is "still a nation at war.” My headline title for the intro piece to this Veterans Day stories pretty much echoes that we are in a “long war” and “still a nation at war.” Perhaps I should say wars, noting the numbers and geography above.
The Register’s every-Monday syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer answers the long-war question with what could be shortened to “No.” And change that “long war” to what she calls “seemingly endless wars” ... “forever wars” ... “permanent wars.”
In her Sept. 17, 2018, column (“Middle East wars fade in fog of Washington”), Geyer pretty much backs up Linker, as she noted that about 40,000 American troops are deployed in the Near East alone. As to the visibility of our wars abroad?
“Have you noticed, for instance, how little we hear or read about them?” she asks. Maybe we Americans getting on with our everyday lives don’t, but our “foreign policy thinkers” do. They’re the ones seeing our wars as endless, permanent, forever.
As for my own view of our invisible wars? Lately, I see less of the superficial support-our-troops magnetic bumper stickers, and rarely do I hear a pull-the-string “Thank you for your service” response when someone finds out I’m a veteran.
This Veterans Day, say a prayer for and genuinely thank the men and women who have served in uniform during our nation’s wars – old and new, hot and cold – and in peacetime.
N.B. Armed Forces Day is celebrated the third Saturday of May. But I still think of those now serving on active duty or in the National Guard or reserves as being veterans; while it’s in the future for them, they are earning it now. So keep them in your prayers also – and genuinely thank them for their service.
Not long after the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, George M. Cohan penned what would become one of his signature songs, “Over There”: “We’ll be over, we’re coming over, and we won’t come back till it’s over, over there.”
When will we be able to sing that song again? Will there ever be a war – over there – to end all wars?
Have a nice day.
