A War for us fought by them
By William Broyles, Jr.
WILSON, Wyo. - The longest love affair of my life
began with a shotgun marriage. It was the height of the Vietnam War and
my student deferment had run out. Desperate not to endanger
myself or to interrupt my personal plans, I wanted to avoid military
service altogether. I didn't have the resourcefulness of Bill Clinton,
so I couldn't figure out how to dodge the draft. I tried to escape into
the National Guard, where I would be guaranteed not to be sent to war,
but I lacked the connections of George W. Bush, so I couldn't slip
ahead of the long waiting list.
My attitude was the same as Dick Cheney's: I was special, I had "other
priorities." Let other people do it.
When my draft notice came in 1968, I was relieved in a way. Although I
had deep doubts about the war, I had become troubled about how I had
angled to avoid military service. My classmates from high school were
in the war; my classmates from college were not - exactly the dynamic
that exists today. But instead of reporting for service in the Army, on
a whim I joined the Marine Corps, the
last place on earth I thought I belonged.
My sacrifice turned out to be minimal. I survived a year as an infantry
lieutenant in
Vietnam. I was not wounded; nor did I struggle
for years with post-traumatic stress disorder. A long bout of survivor
guilt was the price I paid. Others suffered far more, particularly
those who had to serve after the war had lost all sense of purpose for
the men fighting it. I like to think that in spite of my being so
unwilling at first, I did some small service to my country and to that
enduring love of mine, the United States Marine Corps.
To my profound surprise, the Marines did a far greater service to me.
In three years I learned more about standards, commitment and yes,
life, than I did in six years of university. I also learned that I had
had no idea of my own limits: when I was exhausted after humping up and
down jungle mountains in 100-degree heat with a 75-pound pack,
terrified out of my mind, wanting only to quit, convinced I wouldn't
take another step, I found that in fact I could keep going for miles.
And my life was put in the hands of young men I would otherwise never
have met, by and large high-school dropouts, who turned out to be among
the finest people I have ever known.
I am now the father of a young man who has far more character than I
ever had. I joined the Marines because I had to; he signed up after
college because he felt he ought to. He volunteered for an elite unit
and has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. When I see images of Americans in the
war zones, I think of my son and his friends, many of whom I have come
to know and deeply respect. When I opened this newspaper yesterday and
read the front-page headline, "9 G.I.'s Killed," I didn't think in
abstractions. I thought very personally.
The problem is, I don't see the images of or read about any of the
young men and women who, as Dick Cheney and I did, have "other
priorities."
There are no immediate family members of any of the prime civilian
planners of this war serving in it - beginning with President Bush and
extending deep into the Defense Department. Only one of the 535 members
of Congress, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota, has a child in the war
- and only half a dozen others have sons and daughters in the military.
The memorial service yesterday for
Pat Tillman, the football star killed in Afghanistan, further points out this contrast. He
remains the only professional athlete of any sport who left his
privileged life during this war and turned in his play uniform for a
real one. With few exceptions, the only men and women in military
service are the profoundly patriotic or the economically needy.
It was not always so. In other wars, the men and women in charge
made sure their family members led the way. Since 9/11, the war on
terrorism has often been compared to the generational challenge of Pearl Harbor; but Franklin D. Roosevelt's sons all
enlisted soon after that attack. Both of Lyndon B. Johnson's
sons-in-law served in Vietnam.
This is less a matter of politics than privilege. The Democratic elites
have not responded more nobly than have the Republican; it's just that
the Democrats' hypocrisy is less acute. Our president's own family
illustrates the loss of the sense of responsibility that once went with
privilege. In three generations the Bushes have gone from war hero in
World War II, to war evader in
Vietnam, to none of the extended family showing
up in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pat Tillman didn't want to be singled out for having done what other
patriotic Americans his age should have done. The problem is, they
aren't doing it. In spite of the president's insistence that our very
civilization is at stake, the privileged aren't flocking to the flag.
The war is being fought by Other People's Children. The war is
impersonal for the very people to whom it should be most personal.
If the children of the nation's elites were facing enemy fire without
body armor, riding through gantlets of bombs in unarmored Humvees,
fighting desperately in an increasingly hostile environment because of
arrogant and incompetent civilian leadership, then those problems might
well find faster solutions.
The men and women on active duty today - and their companions in the
National Guard and the reserves - have seen their willingness, and that
of their families, to make sacrifices for their country stretched thin
and finally abused. Thousands of soldiers promised a one-year
tour of duty have seen that promise turned into a lie. When Eric
Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, told the president that winning
the war and peace in Iraq would take hundreds of
thousands more troops, Mr. Bush ended his career.
As a result of this and other ill-advised decisions, the war is in
danger of being lost, and my beloved military is being run into the
ground. This abuse of the voluntary military cannot continue. How
to ensure adequate troop levels, with a diversity of backgrounds? How
to require the privileged to shoulder their fair share? In other words,
how to get today's equivalents of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney - and me - into the military, where their talents could
strengthen and revive our fighting forces? The only solution is
to
bring back the draft. Not since the 19th century has America fought a war that lasted longer than a
week with an all-volunteer army; we can't do it now. It is simply not
built for a protracted major conflict. The arguments against the draft
- that a voluntary army is of higher quality, that the elites will
still find a way to evade service - are bogus. In World War II we used
a draft army to fight the Germans and Japanese - two of the most
powerful military machines in history - and we won. The problems in the
military toward the end of Vietnam were not caused by the draft; they were
the result of young Americans being sent to fight and die in a war that
had become a disaster.
One of the few good legacies of Vietnam is that after years of abuses we finally
learned how to run the draft fairly. A strictly impartial lottery, with
no deferments, can ensure that the draft intake matches military needs.
Chance, not connections or clever manipulation, would determine who
serves. If this war is truly worth fighting, then the burdens of
doing so should fall on all Americans. If you support this war, but
assume that Pat Tillman and Other People's Children should fight it,
then you are worse than a hypocrite. If it's not worth your family
fighting it, then it's not worth it, period. The draft is the truest
test of public support for the administration's handling of the war,
which is perhaps why the administration is so dead set against bringing
it back.