A Military Expert, Dedicated To My Dad

It has been said that there is something inherently ignoble in crushing those that are weaker than you. It may be necessary, but all the more reason to conduct yourself with the dignity that the gravity of the situation calls for. War is war; it’s not a football game where you spike the ball and dance around in the end zone. In the fervor leading up to the war in Iraq, Americans and more importantly, our leaders forgot that. Or, in considering our leaders, I just don’t think they really have that much class. Now, the clock doesn’t stop, there are no time outs, and the lines, the enemy and even the goal is blurry.

For me, as a young girl, war was a troubling mystery. You could see and touch the artifacts, the medals with foreign writing, some with swastikas, and the paper money and coins from halfway around the world, but how does a father, a man quiet and reserved by nature, talk to his daughter about such a thing? And so, I was left to wonder and search for the clues that would help explain what my father had experienced that made him the man he was to me.

And what I found was Ernest Hemingway, a one-time reporter for The Kansas City Star. A military expert who had somehow managed to cram into one prematurely ended lifetime enough experiences for an entire battalion of men. Direct, blunt, unmitigated and in a style all his own, he builds a scene of a battlefield or a field hospital and you are there.

Peter A. Brown and the like can write an entire column about the political effect this war might have but they might as well be on a different planet, and I really wish they were. David Brooks says, “This is a culture that knows how to honor the casualties and the dead, but not the strength and prowess of its warriors.” No, you respect that and you honor that but forget about the glory because there is a price that can never be repaid and it might be years before these young soldiers even know what that is. Your part is to make this country worth it.