Forgive a Vet

TODAY IS PEARL HARBOR DAY

When my mother died and we were cleaning out her house, we found some things of my father’s that she had stored away.  One was a program for a banquet when he was serving in the army in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.  I don’t have it right in front of me, but what I remember is that it had the menu, it had the invocation, the speaker, the national anthem and so forth.  It was dated December 7, 1941. I am sure that the banquet was canceled. What happened to the food is anyone’s guess.  What happened to everyone on that island is not hard to figure out.  All of those men were touched, and transformed by the war that was to follow.

My father, like many men of his generation, did not talk a lot about the war.  One story he had told to all of the family was that he was in the Aleutians—closer to Japan than Hawaii was—because of the whim of his commander.  There were two National Guard units from Minnesota that were called up in late 1940 or early 1941.  Whether dad’s C.O. had seniority or not, and therefore got his wish, his wish had to relate to killing. But not of humans.  He was a hunter, and chose Alaska, because he always wanted to shoot a Kodiak bear.  I don’t know if he did or not, and my father has been dead now 16 years, so I can’t ask him.

The other unit was sent to the Philippines, and I wonder how many of them came back alive.  They must have arrived there in time for the Bataan Death March, in which so many prisoners died of disease, starvation or executions that happened nearly every day.  What would have happened if my dad’s unit would have gone there, instead of to the Aleutians?  Would I still be who I am?  Would I even be?

Dad was reticent about sharing stories about the war, and after his death, we realized that he had told some stories to only one son, and another story to another son. (I don’t know if he shared anything with my sister.)  He shared with my older brother, Michael, his experience with fighting the Japanese on one of the islands.  I’m not sure which island or exactly when, but what he told my brother was this: at some point, their morning detail was to go to the beach and bayonet the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers lying on the sand, with the hope of killing—or at least discovering—the live soldiers that hid among the corpses. 

My dad would have been around 30 when that happened, so he was a youth.  He had been through enough tough stuff in his life: the Dust Bowl and Depression, riding the rails, working in the CCC, being without a home, essentially for a period of time.  He wasn’t a naïve kid just off the farm.  But still, that experience of bayoneting the dead must have been very traumatic.

(You can read my poem that touches on this  “You Are My Father, My Son”, at my MN Artists page at: http://www.mnartists.org/Patrick_Cabello_Hansel). The next to the last stanza reads:

I witness this day with my hands:

your stomach turning, your young

eyes grinding down, as you

walk along the Aleutian shoreline,

turning each face over, one by one.

My dad was not like some vets, who sought out the companionship of others who had served in that way—he never went to VFW events, for example, that I remember.  As he got older, and became more spiritual, what I saw in him was a both a resignation that he did what had to be done during the war, and a recognition that he needed forgiveness.  He was proud of his service in defeating fascism, but as he told me once, in pain, “sometimes in war you have to do things you know are wrong”.

There has been so much emphasis on “Support the Troops” over the last couple decades; I suppose that some of that has to do with our national grief and shame that we didn’t support the troops coming back from Viet Nam like we should have.  I can’t imagine that anyone would not want to support their family members or friends or even strangers who are sent to war by us.  But its simplicity and the way it is hammered over and over into us, especially during the holidays hide some unpleasant truths.

One of those truths is that there are things our troops do in our name that should not be supported: invading countries under false pretenses, killing civilians, propping up unjust governments (as in Afghanistan).  I fully realize that war is never clean, and that international issues are very complicated.  But I am afraid that the impetus to support our troops can be so easily manipulated by leaders who desire war for all the wrong reasons.

In the time prior to the beginning of the second Iraq war, we lived in Philadelphia, and there were competing demonstrations, often on the same day.  The signs at the demonstrations against the invasion were mostly “No War” or “War is Not the Answer” and so on.  The only signs I ever saw at the pro-war rallies were “Support Our Troops”.  This was ostensibly during the time when we as a nation, and Congress in particular were deciding whether to go to war in the first place.  “Our troops” were not even there yet.  We claimed we were working internationally to stop the Weapons of Mass Destruction (that’s a whole ‘nother post, or a bunch of them). 

I am glad that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, but I am not glad of the civil war our invasion generated, nor of the atrocities committed in our name.  Too often we cling to our belief that we are righteous and just.  That doesn’t just belong to the present.  There is a movement now to reframe the Viet Nam war as something just. It wasn’t.  1 million people died during our occupation.  We dropped more bombs on Viet Nam than all the bombs dropped by all the nations in World War II.  We defoliated half the country. All to support a regime that tortured its people, and stole its resources.

There is no doubt that many of our troops fought bravely and selflessly in both Viet Nam and Iraq.   There is no doubt that many of our troops suffered, and still suffer terribly. We should not forget them, and we should do everything in our power to help them.  But there is also no doubt that our troops—in our name—did terrible things.  Honoring them as heroes won’t help them get passed those particular wounds of war, and it won’t make us a better people, a more just nation.  There has to be a deeper healing, a more thorough accounting of what we have done as a people.

I believe that part of that has to do with reconciliation.  Those countries that have, and continue to have ways of bringing out the truth, and practicing reconciliation can be a guide.  I think of South Africa, northern Ireland, Argentina and so forth.  Their processes aren’t perfect, but where it has worked it has given perpetrators the chance to confess and victims the chance to hear, and if they choose, to forgive.  (For those of us who are Christians, isn’t confession and forgiveness at the heart of what we believe? And yet, we rarely use it when it comes to veterans.)

There are many calls to “hug a vet”, “welcome a vet home” and so on.  We can and should do that.  But I would like to issue a call today to “forgive a vet”.  We can’t do that in isolation from the pain and suffering they go through, and we can’t do that cleanly without confessing our role in supporting the wars, paying for the wars, not working hard enough to stop the wars.

I don’t doubt that if you do this publicly, there may be a great deal of pushback. It’s hard for any of us to admit we’ve wronged another, and it’s especially hard for groups of people, whether it be a church, an institution or a nation.  But I think it may work to bring healing and freedom, in the truest sense.  I’m willing to try it. 

Be justice. Be beauty.  Be forgiveness.

Patrick