The value of war

I've said it before- someone in my family has fought in every war since the American Revolution. In the current war, my niece was in the Air Force serving in the Pentagon. So, it's not like my family, on BOTH sides, hasn't made some sacrifices for this country. In fact, every generation has served in the military somewhere. The Pokergirl would have been in VietNam as a nurse had the war not ended before she enlisted. I have watched a million demonstrators, and once, in 1969, I was one of them. The sadness I felt watching college classmates be shipped off was immense. During my high school years, my brother spent 3 tours of duty in Viet Nam. The injuries he suffered probably led to his early death. So it is a war I know something of. At the time, it seemed horrible. A huge waste of young men and women. A carnage. It had the byproduct of keeping young men in college studying hard. No one wanted to be draft eligible. No one could see any purpose to a stupid war that cost us the lives of our young men. The price was immense- well over 50,000. A trip to the Viet Nam War memorial in D.C. reduced me to tears for days. Those weren't just names, but solemn etchings of lives of people my age summed up in letters. No real need to read them- we knew them all.
Now in Iraq, far, far,far fewer have died and none drafted- but all belonging to someone who loves them. Each with a mother, some with a wife and children. And the loss is as painful as if there was a generation of pain as in Viet Nam.
But with hindsight, I can look hard into the history I know and believe that not one of those lives was in vain. Despite what we believed at the time. And I have my reasons.
By being in VietNam, the United States kept its mortal enemy, the USSR, very busy. In fact, so busy that we put enormous strain on the economy of Russia. The communist Chinese also were dragged into war. A long, drawn out, brutal war -purported to prevent the domino effect of all countries in southeast Asia falling into the hands of the Communists. It was tiring and expensive for every country that touched it. The French handed it over to us, and after we poured our blood on it, it was eventually over. But had we not been there, had we not stood in Viet Nam and showed we would make those horrible sacrifices, where would the Russians and Chinese have gone? What would have happened to the south Pacific islands? What would have happened to India? Who knows. And would the Russians have allowed Germany to reunite unless Russia had been exhauted and broke? That is unlikely. So now, I look back on the VietNam war with a different eye. Was it worth the deaths and maiming of so many young people who never wanted to go? Maybe not. But that is no longer the point- what's done is done. But to find some purpose in the loss is consoling.
As for Iraq- it was a now or later scenario, wasn't it? Were the people of Iraq better with Saddam? I am sorry Bush used the defense of Saddam's repeated UN offenses and his suspected weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was worth taking out all by himself. Saddam Hussein was his OWN weapon of mass destruction. Ask the Kurds. A country that used to house most of the educated elite of the mid East became a place of rape and terror and murder. But to look for a purpose in that war, aside from allowing a republic to now exist in the middle East, one only has to ask, what if we HADN'T gone in? Well, the invasion of Iraq did do one very important thing- it showed the middle East that we were fully capable of ending ruthless dictatorships. FULLY capable. It certainly got Iran to shut the hell up. And no one has come over here to hurt us since. Until Obama sent his whining missive to Iran, we had the grudging respect of the other middle eastern countries regardless of their sword rattling and shoe throwing. I would have liked to have seen that protestor throw his shoe at Saddam. It is easy to have false bravado when you are free. So have those 4400 soldiers died in vain? I think not. The history of the future is not written yet. Perhaps one day we will look back and be amazed that 4400 lives made the world a far safer and better place by establishing a fact that the US has the backs of so many people in the world.
There is a scene in the series "Weeds" when the youngest boy is sent to a new school. On his first day there, he asks who is the biggest bully in the school. The kids point to a certain boy sitting at a cafeteria table. The boy walk over to the bully, taps him on the shoulder, and then, with all his might, hits him square in the face with his cafeteria tray. He walks away knowing the bully will never single him out for humiliation. Sometimes, that is what it takes. We do not live on Sesame Street.
So maybe there is a value to war after all.