You don’t need me to tell you that Phil Klay’s Redeployment is worth your attention. Last year it won the National Book Award for Fiction. But I do want to highlight an Essay he read last night on the PBS Newshour, on the theme of what Klay would tell his young son about his service as a Marine in the Iraq war. The full four-minute version is embedded here; below I’ll mention the part that struck me.
Here is how Klay ends, on the “lessons” of his service. Emphasis added:
I volunteered, after all. All of us did. That’s how we wage war now. A fraction serves, and a majority decides in hindsight which politician to blame it on….
You don’t get to decide the broad course of history, only your role within it. I wish I could evade responsibility for all that’s gone wrong in Iraq and only think about the sacrifices of those I served with, the heroic efforts, the courage of the Iraqis I met, the lives of both Iraqis and Americans saved by the medical staff at my base….
But I can’t. I’m an American citizen, responsible, just like every other citizen, for every part of the war, not just how I felt about the end of my part.
In a democracy, everyone shares responsibility. Troops don’t issue themselves orders. War is paid for by our tax dollars and ordered by politicians we as a people need to hold accountable.
So, I guess this is what I will tell my son. I will tell him it’s my job now and until I die to be an informed citizen. I will tell him about joining institutions, government or otherwise, that are working for a better world.
Blame, versus responsibility: I’ve added emphasis to this passage to highlight the contrast.
In a chickenhawk nation, it’s easy for politicians and public to wait around and decide whom to blame when things go wrong. What’s much harder is accepting responsibility for war-and-peace decisions as they are being made ( for instance, now) and for the lasting consequences, good and bad, foreseeable and not, as they accrue. As I mentioned last week in discussing Nancy Sherman’s book Afterwar, merely saying “thank you for your service” has become a largely empty ritual. The real demonstration of thanks, as Klay points out, is service as an informed, responsible citizen.
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I’ve also mentioned many times the powerful book God Is Not Here: A Soldier’s Struggle with Torture, Trauma, and the Moral Injuries of War, by Lt. Col. Bill Russell Edmonds. Here is a video of Edmonds lecturing on various aspects of moral responsibility, last month at Clark University.