By Patrick Lang
“For 14 hours yesterday, I was at work—teaching Christ to
lift his cross by the numbers, and how to adjust his crown;
and not to imagine he thirst until after the last halt. I
attended his Supper to see that there were no complaints; and
inspected his feet that they should be worthy of the nails. I
see to it that he is dumb, and stands before his accusers.
With a piece of silver I buy him every day, and with maps I
make him familiar with the topography of
Golgotha.”
Captain Wilfred Owen, The
Manchesters
Killed in Action, Nov. 4, 1918
This famous quotation from the work of the soldier-poet
Wilfred Owen sums up both the awfulness and the beauty of a
combat soldier’s life. It is particularly meaningful to those
who have been given the chance to train and lead men in war. I
came to know Owen’s work a few years back through Paul
Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory. Professor
Fussell was badly wounded in World War II and is still filled
with the righteous outrage that fills most combat men. God
bless him.
Many will recoil in horror from the idea that there can be
beauty in the life led by combat soldiers, the immortal
“grunts” and Grognards who live in historic memory. It
is all too easy to see nothing but the pain and the misery of
loss, wounds and experience so horrible that it scars for
life. Perhaps the worst is the memory of suffering necessarily
inflicted on others whose motives are often no more base or
lacking in what the Romans called pietas than our own.
Not political enough for you? Go talk to a soldier and see if
he agrees with you.
Comrades in Fear and Friendship
On the good side of the ledger there is the fact that there
are no better friends than those with whom you have been
deeply and comprehensively afraid. “Go tell my mother,” says
Private Ryan in Spielberg’s exquisite film. “Go tell her that
I will stay here, with the only brothers I have left.” This
rings so true that it requires no explanation. Those ties bind
unto death, until “the last jump,” as I have heard World War
II paratroopers express it. The friendship and indeed love of
comrades often long gone is, perhaps, the greatest “good” in
war. It is often said that war brings out the best and the
worst in people. This is profoundly true. Men who in civilian
life would not have crossed the street to help a stranger
often fall in the effort to help near strangers. There are
many good things to be remembered. All of them have to do with
comrades.
These days we are served by professionals and militia
soldiers of the National Guard and reserve. These are men and
women who bring to mind Lt. Col. Arthur Fremantle’s
description of the infantry soldiers of Lee’s army at
Gettysburg. Fremantle was a Coldstream Guards officer who had
come to America to observe. He got a bellyfull of observing,
but said of “Lee’s Miserables” that they were “simply beyond
praise.” Our people are like that now. A friend’s son is now
on his way back overseas for his fourth tour of duty in the
Asian war against the jihadis. Soon, his experience will not
be unusual. Forty-five years ago his father and I, looking
down the barrel of another war, would never have believed that
we would see this. We were short-sighted, blinded by the
myopia of youth. What is the old saw from Plato? “Only the
dead have seen the end of war....” Really? My word....
No Need for Boosterism
I sometimes receive letters from people who are filled with
a great and high-minded attitude about war. “Well, that is why
soldiers exist....” “Losses are worth their pain in a good
cause....” “Our soldiers will prevail through their skill and
the great weapons we buy them.” I would say to such people
that the soldiers already know that. They do not need your
boosterism to help them do their duty. They will do their duty
to the last, as so many of our soldiers have done. Just let
them get on with it without suffering the indignity of your
remarks.
Just after the war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, an Army
chaplain said Mass one Memorial Day in the post chapel of the
Presidio of Monterey. Since America is a Jesuit
magazine, it is fitting to mention that he was a Jesuit, as so
many other Army chaplains have been. He had served in World
War II, Korea and Vietnam. He had served with many infantry
units. The infantry are the people who always do the serious,
up-close killing and dying. The Army reckons that over 90
percent of all combat deaths happen in the infantry.
During his homily this priest looked out at the
congregation, overwhelmingly populated with combat men and
their families. He said that he wanted the people of God to
remember their brothers asleep in the Lord’s embrace. He
wanted them to remember how each man died alone, alone in
fear, alone in misery, usually with no one to comfort him,
often in the dark, with his life running out through
mutilations that left little doubt of the outcome. He asked
them to pray for their brothers, for the brothers who had died
for us all as Jesus died for us all. The congregation sang.
“In the beauty of the lilies/ Christ was born across the sea,/
with a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me./ As he
died to make men holy, let us die to make men free./ His truth
is marching on.”
A Memorial Day Prayer
Nothing has changed. The wounds inflicted by improvised
explosive devices are appalling. Go to Walter Reed or Bethesda
and see for yourself. The troops are not complaining. They
never complain, and so nobody has any right to be less
committed to the eternal mission of the soldier than they
are.
This Memorial Day, remember that the cemeteries and
physical therapy wards are full of men and women who gave
their all for you, and who in many cases ask nothing more than
to be allowed to go back and do it again. Pray for them.
Please.
“I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your
water and wine.
The deaths ye died, I have watched
beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.
Was there aught that I did not shareOne joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts
across the seas?
I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered
people’s mirth,
In jesting guise—but ye are wise,
And ye
know what the jest is worth.”
- Rudyard Kipling
“The Rifleman”
Patrick Lang, a retired Army colonel, served as
chief Mideast analyst and head of human intelligence for the
U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency during the 1990’s. Click here
for a sample of author's writings in
America and for books by author at amazon.com. Link to "sample writings" is slow; link to amazon may
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