The issue of experience as authority to speak about war comes up for the soldiers, even though they themselves haven't yet fought. They are disappointed that Jarrell wasn't a ball turret gunner, when they read the poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner." Experience trumps willing suspension disbelief yet again. Never mind that he could not be the ball turret gunner of the poem, since that speaker is DEAD!
Yet whenever the subject of Jarrell’s biography came up, the plebes seemed disappointed. When I asked if it mattered whether he had actually served as a ball-turret gunner, they would become passionately insistent: “Yes, ma’am, of course it matters. If he didn’t, it ruins the poem.” “But he couldn’t experience his own death and then write about it, could he?” I would venture. “No,” would come the reluctant response, “but it still matters. Somehow, it still matters.” Because it mattered so very much, many of the plebes, though not yet battle-tested, could not at first see the incongruity of demanding more of Randall Jarrell than they did of themselves. Owning war is one of the things for which plebes will fight hardest, and they guard even wars of the imagination rather jealously.
This is a thoughtful and probing article by Samet, who's clearly doing good work--work that is more than about literature. She ends, appropriately, with Tolstoy, as balm for a self-questioning soldier:
READING TOLSTOY’S “WAR AND PEACE” at around the same time I heard from Brad, I was struck by the passage in which Prince Andrey’s friend Pierre asks him what he is “going to war for.” “What for?” responds Andrey. “I don’t know. Because I have to. Besides, I’m going . . . I’m going because the life I lead here, this life is — not to my taste!” Like Brad, Andrey didn’t have a ready answer for his civilian friend. After going to war, moreover, his motivations become even more complicated, almost impossible to articulate. Andrey loves glory yet feels its emptiness. He bears a deep responsibility to the men of his regiment, a love of country and a full recognition of the waste of war. All of these causes and desires battle within him even as he fights the enemy. I told Brad the story of Prince Andrey. What I guess I wanted him to understand was that thoughtful soldiers will endure moments of ambivalence.
I have become increasingly preoccupied with Prince Andrey as the Iraq war drags on. I think of the overwhelming pride and pleasure with which, disillusioned as he has become with the pursuit of glory, he responds to General Kutuzov’s recollection of the courageous charge in which Andrey had been given up for dead. “I remember you at Austerlitz,” the old general tells him, “I remember, I remember you with the flag!” I think, too, of the fate that awaits Andrey at Borodino, where he receives the wound that eventually kills him. Even as I know that fewer wars would be fought if the Andreys of the world stopped feeling the primal urge to go to battle, I also realize with breathtaking selfishness that even more wars would be lost, and that on occasion we might be lost, if the Brads of the world decided to sit them out. Once again I have retreated — or advanced — to books. I suppose I hope that the world of imaginative literature I have grown so accustomed to inhabiting and through which my own horizons have been enlarged might provide the same rich vein for someone like Brad, who is trying to figure out nothing less than how to live his life.
6 comments:
This is a good essay, but the ending worries me (the "what if people didn't fight, how bad might that be?"). I'd say, give it a try sometime!
This is a good essay, but the ending worries me (the "what if people didn't fight, how bad might that be?"). I'd say, give it a try sometime!
Susan,
I think what she's saying is that she'd prefer to have thoughtful soldiers, who probe the ethics of what they do, than ones who are merely machines...of course you're right, why not make all of them (and all of us) unfit for combat! But if will be war, then don't we have the responsibility to ensure that those soldiers who execute those orders are prepared for the consequences--both inner and outer consequences?
Hello Phil--this was the sentence that worried me:
Even as I know that fewer wars would be fought if the Andreys of the world stopped feeling the primal urge to go to battle, I also realize with breathtaking selfishness that even more wars would be lost, and that on occasion we might be lost, if the Brads of the world decided to sit them out.
Susan--I'm glad that Samet's line worries you. And I'm extremely gratified that she is now teaching Plebe English at West Point. I struggled through Plebe English almost twenty years ago, much like the way I struggle with the challenges, implications, and contradictions of modern warfare. We (Samet, you, and I) would probably agree (over coffee) that 'people' around the globe are going to differ in priorties, morality, and definitions of justice and honor. If we were to agree to that we'd soon discover that we'd agree that those differences would ultimately lead to different organizations of society and governance. And we would probably agree that those differences, at times, would lead to conflict over who controls/owns whom, who prays to what, and what organizational element of society holds primacy (individual? clan? tribe? nation? god?). The entire sweep of human history would suggest that such is the case. If you or I were to belive, for example, that the individual is the appropriate unit of account. That individual rights of life and liberty are preferrable, indeed mandated, by natural law or divine ispiration, or just because we happen to agree to it. And that all humans should have some degree of latitude to determine what is in their best interest....then we would find a good deal of powerful 'others' that would like nothing more than to be rid of us. Then we would have to rely on a few of us to keep those 'others' at arms reach. And that would require a good deal of force of course.
I'm glad you're worried. I would wish every thinking person to skeptically approach the notion that war is unavoidable. The results are too terrible to accept such a hypothesis at face value. I would also wish every thinking person to consider what should be done if our chosen way of life is threatened by powerful others regardless of their motivation (political power, religious practice, ideology). Keep worrying.
I'm a soldier. I'm a father of young children. Noone despises the thought of war in theory more than I. I'm also convinced (because of our conversation over coffee) that war, at times, will be necessary if we wish not to be slaves of tyrants. Keep thinking.
Just like those struggling Plebes.
Thanks, Joe, whose comment I only now discovered. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.
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