Reflections on 11/11

Ninety years ago today the battlefields of Europe fell silent for the first time in over four years, and the war that wrought more death and devastation than any other in the course of human history came to an indecisive end. Not indecisive in the traditional sense of warfare, the Allied Powers of primarily Britain, France, and the emerging United States claimed victory over the defeated German and Austrian empires, and the usual spoils of warfare were accorded. A most infamous peace treaty was signed at Versailles, France, that is widely credited with being so punitive to the Germans that it spawned the Second World War a mere generation later. So the Great War, what we more commonly refer to as World War I, came to an end on November 11, at 11:00 in the morning, and that is the reason why this day is marked throughout Europe and the U.S., what we celebrate, to use the term loosely, as Veterans Day.

The Great War was indecisive in that it failed to become as promised, the war to end all wars. Instead what it left our human society was a whole slew of new and innovative ways to kill each other, on a grand scale unimaginable only a century earlier. The Civil War was the first industrial war in which modern technology played a large role, with devastating consequences for both sides. But The Great War a half century later took mankind’s ability to destroy to a new level, and warfare ever since has been marked by what began almost a century ago. The Great War is one of the handful of watershed moments in the human narrative because it marks a fundamental shift not only in how we fight wars, but in our politics, in our dealings with one another, in a certain loss of our humanity, and we still feel the effects today.

Many of my high school students are amazed and exasperated that we have not advanced further as a human race than to be able to solve our differences diplomatically, or to just accept them and live with them. I share their sentiments, especially as I think of all the beauty there is in this world and of how much of a stake all of us have in sharing the planet peacefully. The belligerence that seems to go sometimes unnoticed and usually unchecked is shocking when you really stop to think about it. The debate in the recently concluded presidential campaign wasn’t about war and peace, it was about how many wars to fight and where to fight them. McCain wanted to bomb everyone and ask questions later, and even created songs about the feat. Obama wants to pull our troops out of one Asian boondoggle so that we can send them to another undefined war without end a bit further to the east. Does this sound like we have learned our lessons?

As many on the right, the so-called Hawks like to point out, the world is a dangerous place, and we have to be prepared to deal with those realities. There is an argument for peace through strength, the notion that if we are strong enough militarily that we can use our position of power as a deterrence to would be bad actors. I think there is something to this argument, I would agree that the world does have bad actors that would do us harm if they could, certainly 9/11 is such an example. I am not naïve to the realities of the world we live in, and I also agree that military strength can be an excellent deterrence. But the problem is that we’ve gotten the strength part nailed down, it’s the peace part that we are struggling with.

I heard someone at the coffee house earlier give a cheery Happy Veterans Day wish to someone else, presumably the recipient wasn’t even a veteran, it was just a greeting the way one might say Happy Halloween or Merry Christmas. There really is nothing happy about a day like today, anymore than you would approach a widow at a funeral and comment jovially about the beautiful weather that we are having. Today is a day to mark those, on all sides and from all nations and corners of the globe, that have sacrificed and continue as I write this to sacrifice the most precious commodity of all, human life, for the sake of war.

It is certainly also a day to honor our own nation’s veterans, and to mark the sacrifices that they and their families have made and continue to make in service of their country. Soldiers don’t write the game plan, they don’t determine when and against whom to go to war, they carry out the orders given to them with stoicism and bravery, they embody the spirit of the common good, and perform difficult and often horrendous tasks in the face of mortal danger, and for this they are to be commended.

But it is any nation’s duty to see to it that those who would accept the mission are not put into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary and vital to protect further human life. This is the only way that the ends can ever justify the means, no amount of territory or political prestige can ever justify the loss of human life. We must remain vigilant as a people that we hold our elected officials accountable to these standards, not only because it is in our best national interests, as our original commander-in-chief warned us brilliantly in his farewell address, but because what we support, and oppose, ultimately speaks to our humanity and truly defines what it means to be a human being.