War by Sebastian Junger [Book]
War by Sebastian Junger is kicking my ass but I'm persevering through reading it.
I read it a little at a time. My son read it. It messed with his head a bit. Guys in the book were the same age as he. Some of them die; none of them will ever be the same.
I hate war. When you grow up outside of a military base (in my case, Camp Pendleton) during the Vietnam years, you can't help but hate it. When I was in 6th grade, we got a new violin teacher. Being kids, we asked about her family. She said she had no children and her husband had died. Very matter-of-factly, we kids assumed what we thought was obvious and one of us asked, "Vietnam?" She smiled and said, "No. Cancer. But it is odd that you all immediately thought Vietnam."
One of my classmates said, "We all know someone who died in Vietnam." We didn't mention how many of us knew fathers who lived in motels because they couldn't handle living with their families or brothers who came back and just disappeared one day. It was too common to us that we probably assumed that it was common to her too. Even if her husband did die of cancer and not Vietnam.
But a child grows up and it has been a long time since that day. Vietnam became a memory. What it is like to be in a war is distant and detached.
The Afghan war is one treated like a war that isn't happening. Not officially. Yet it is happening and I know the reasons for it. (The reasons are, in fact, more clear than the Vietnam War.)
Iut the nitty gritty of war isn't just about the political mumbo jumbo. It is the people who fight experience something that changes them forever.
Reading War makes me remember that surreal uncertainty that I lived with when I was a kid. Yet, I feel like I have to read it. So I can remember that war is not political rhetoric and that it is being fought somewhere out there.
I read it a little at a time. My son read it. It messed with his head a bit. Guys in the book were the same age as he. Some of them die; none of them will ever be the same.
I hate war. When you grow up outside of a military base (in my case, Camp Pendleton) during the Vietnam years, you can't help but hate it. When I was in 6th grade, we got a new violin teacher. Being kids, we asked about her family. She said she had no children and her husband had died. Very matter-of-factly, we kids assumed what we thought was obvious and one of us asked, "Vietnam?" She smiled and said, "No. Cancer. But it is odd that you all immediately thought Vietnam."
One of my classmates said, "We all know someone who died in Vietnam." We didn't mention how many of us knew fathers who lived in motels because they couldn't handle living with their families or brothers who came back and just disappeared one day. It was too common to us that we probably assumed that it was common to her too. Even if her husband did die of cancer and not Vietnam.
But a child grows up and it has been a long time since that day. Vietnam became a memory. What it is like to be in a war is distant and detached.
The Afghan war is one treated like a war that isn't happening. Not officially. Yet it is happening and I know the reasons for it. (The reasons are, in fact, more clear than the Vietnam War.)
Iut the nitty gritty of war isn't just about the political mumbo jumbo. It is the people who fight experience something that changes them forever.
Reading War makes me remember that surreal uncertainty that I lived with when I was a kid. Yet, I feel like I have to read it. So I can remember that war is not political rhetoric and that it is being fought somewhere out there.