I have had this image of my father, heading into the Navy during WWII, on my desk of late. It was given me by my dear cousins, with other relics I had not seen before. I look at that young face, a jaunty and shining face in the moment, and I think on what came after. I think of what is happening now, of the storms of grief and horror that beset the world, ever and again.
Sometimes we are rebuked for criticizing a war or its leaders. They say we are somehow “against the troops.” I believe it is precisely the contrary. I believe we fail the troops unless we hold the leaders to the highest — the very highest — standards.
“Boots on the ground” they keep saying. Say rather, sons and daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers on the ground. Beating hearts on the ground. Or at sea, or risked by air.
There have been rare times in history, as in WWII, when joining a war has been necessary, even unavoidable.
If there is ever a time to start a war, that choice demands consultation with the best-informed minds that can be brought together. Restraint. Understanding of vast complexities. The awful responsibility of death and sacrifice. Compliance with our Constitution and the law. All of this requires the humility to listen, and a dedication to truth and fact.
Instead, now, there is hubris amok at the top. Those who serve in good faith are being led, or pushed, into an ill-conceived war by a decaying, megalomaniacal flimflam man living in a sycophantic bubble and a chest-thumping, blood-thirsting bullyboy better fitted for his former job as a TV co-host on a propaganda channel. Further, our head grifter’s weaknesses make him vulnerable to manipulation by foreign leaders with greater focus and long-term intent.
Those who serve and risk their lives deserve immeasurably better. We the people deserve better, despite our blunders. The people just trying to live in every country afflicted never merited this catastrophe, and little girls at school in Tehran desperately needed better. This must stop. Somehow. Before bitter spreading ripples consume the world.
What happened to my own father?
He had, apparently, an extraordinary mathematical mind. While in the Navy, he recalculated something to do with radar. Or so I understand. It was notable enough to get him invited to Los Alamos after the war, to work with Oppenheimer and company, work related to “the bomb” and its evolution.
It was there that his letters suggest he turned from a young, still hopeful man to one disillusioned. He said they worked like ants to build a dire thing, without foresight or awareness of consequences. After a year, he left. I am proud of him for that.
It seems he could not find a home for his particular genius thereafter. He became a painter. Then he was gone. So no, the war did not kill him. But I do believe the unwisdom and weight of the world played a part. He was taken out by despair, lethal as a storm at sea. That left my mother walking wounded, and though it happened when I was a baby, I realize even now there is a kind of Mariana Trench at my center, an abyssal syphon that swallows me regularly.
And there, I think of the losses, daily, hourly and by the second that these wars inflict on countless souls. Never, never to be erased or entirely healed.