I never once heard the word Hero used regarding my father. He never once trotted out his medals or shared stories of valor. But I saw, ever more clearly as I grew up, the toll that the battlefield took on Dad's life. In mostly subliminal ways, my siblings and I were taught to work for peace rather than to fight for victory. Striving together for the common good took precedence over all forms of "fighting against" a perceived enemy.
When I was coming of age in the Sixties, the Vietnam War was raging ever more strongly. Did we even call it a War then? And if we did, was that enough to persuade a generation of young men to enlist or go along when they got drafted to fight? Boys and men my age were heading to S.E. Asia to shoot and be shot at, to bomb and to gas, but where was the moral authority that persuaded us that this war was needed, was justified, was right? What did the families whose sons and brothers and young fathers were killed and maimed use to explain to themselves why that needed to happen?
And what about all the undeclared wars that have followed? Is the idea of patriotism sufficient to justify seeing our sons and daughters give up their autonomy, deliver their ability to choose to their commanding officers, and head off into battles that have no articulated justifications. Have we stopped asking whether it's right to fight?
I was drafted. My Draft Lottery number was 33 out of 366. Back then, in 1971, my being gay was enough to exclude me from ever serving. After the protection of college, my many straight male friends who were drafted and healthy enough to serve had to choose. Some left the country. Some were Conscientious Objectors. And others crossed the Pacific and faced combat. While the war in Vietnam touched all our lives, those who believed they were fighting for freedom and laid their lives on the line, they are the ones whose lives were ended or battered. And for what?
We don't know what we're doing. In the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in the seas off North Korea, we are gathering forces and weapons , we are defending and we are fighting, we are trying to comfort the families of the wounded and killed by calling their loved ones "heroes". But mostly, we are ignoring the magnitude of what our country is doing and what our country is standing for. We get riled up about the dirty politics at home, but we are paying our tax dollars for weapons that destroy life and soldiers who are never shown why they are fighting.
By deferentially going along with the deadly fantasy that we're protecting our values through military action, by briefly treating another victim of this fantasy as a "hero," only to forget about them the next day, we are damaging our country, our people, our world. Until a hero becomes one who is bold and courageous enough to stand up to this fatal hubris and to call our military incursions out for what they really are, we will be shaming our country and despoiling our humanity.
This I believe.