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January 03, 2006
Cindy Sheehan lite
Now that Cindy Sheehan's 15 minutes are up, the Bush haters may be intent on finding her successor. It was the headline of this piece that piqued my interest: "A Life, Wasted." Paul Schroeder is the dad of a fallen Marine, and his column begins with a point few would debate: "...when heard repeatedly, the phrases "he died a hero" or "he died a patriot" or "he died for his country" rub raw." He continues: "The words 'hero' and 'patriot' focus on the death, not the life. They are a flag-draped mask covering the truth that few want to acknowledge openly: Death in battle is tragic no matter what the reasons for the war." This is all fair, even poignant, although my perspective is that death - in war or otherwise - doesn't often inspire eloquence by those touched by it, and words tend to fail rather than console. And Schroeder here reminds me of a famous passage from Farewell to Arms, in which this theme is clear:
I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.
After this, though, Schroeder's column spirals downward as he gets to his real point, which is to issue a rallying call to the anti-war left, even if it means slandering his own son's sacrifice:
Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.
But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.
The latter half of this piece reads like a MoveOn talking points memo. I cannot fathom being the dad of a fallen US Marine, but neither can I understand why Mr. Schroeder offers his son's memory to the left, to be sullied and abused for the sake of the anti-Americans' decades-old political agenda.
Posted by bill at January 3, 2006 01:31 PM
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