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Remembering the Romance of War July, 2003
Alas, the marches, the fiery speeches by leaders and laymen shouting at the top of their lungs, "peace at all cost," reached no one in those hallowed halls in those earlier days. The war came, and we could have sworn it had gone. There was an empty victory, a questionable victory…but a victory, none the less. A victory that almost sucked the most rational of us in. The peace-mongers with clinched fingers holding on to reality, fighting tooth and nail not be pulled into that thing called the new American patriotism. Clinching our teeth not to utter the words, `after all…we are the good guys, and he's the bad guy."
As a child I remember how war would tug at my emotions. The romance of it all. My defense was my ignorance. My lack of understanding of life or death. A cartoonish understanding of what bullets could actually do to someone's son or husband or father, breathing their last breath in another man's land. In most American's defense, I suppose it is natural that pride and fear should co-mingle as we strive for the ideals, and fear the price of idealism.
For, I can't deny the memories… of a young girl, with a lump in her throat as she watches movies depicting America's bombers destroying the "enemy;" or, our men in blue marching into Iwo Jima. The Cooper and Gable days, when American idealism was in full throttle. That time - between world war II, and the Vietnam war - when every male child, black or white, wanted to be a soldier, helping rid the world of evil.
It was during this time, in 1962 that my brother, James became a soldier. Never mind that America wasn't at war at the time; that we, as Americans, were enjoying years of calm after the proverbial Nazi storm. How my chest swelled with pride when I told friends, "My brother is a soldier." James, who had graduated at the top of his class, and had what mama called those Jackie Robinson good looks, was who we children thought of when we watched footage of handsome young boys marching so perfectly together, spiffy in their form-fitting uniforms, pride oozing out every pore.
When I watched Saturday movies with my brothers, it was James' dark, handsome face I saw, instead of Glenn Ford, whose irreverent idealism always ended in victory for the boys in blue; or John Wayne's half smirk-half smile - America's poster boy for bully-ish patriotism. We embraced that toughness and irreverence because it had something to do with James, our own tough, but good soldier.
Almost as if it was a dream, I remember that Christmas Eve when James surprised us all -- taking leave to spend the holidays with his family. Christmas eve, with snow and the birth of mama's last child, just two days old. Little Judy falling asleep in mama's arms as she moves around the kitchen, tying up loose ends before Christmas showed up tomorrow; and, hearing that voice - James' teasing voice, and her whirling around, and into the arms of my handsome soldier brother. Our cries of happiness I recall as an echo that must have ricocheted miles down Varner Road. "Brother's home!" "Brother's home!" We danced and ran through the house, in shameless, pride-filled, delirium.
The look on mama's face as she stood back and took in this new son of hers, was a look I'd never seen before. Without understanding it, our love and pride was elevated because "one of us" now represented the good in America, in direct parallel to the blight on America's goodness, our dire existence so usually represented.
James was our hero, without ever asking for it. Out of 11 boys, he was the chosen one, the first and only Kearney boy drafted by the military. When I asked him during that Xmas vacation, if he was going to war, he answered apologetically, and somewhat hopefully, "Not yet, Kiddo."
Christian to the bone, Daddy had forever preached the evils of war, but even he couldn't help himself. His chest got a little bigger, and he stood a little taller, when James joined us that Sunday, in our small, white church. His eyes, bashfully took in his son, sitting tall and erect in his army suit.
When James' army stint was over, he spent a few weeks at home, on his way to his new life in California. He drove a canary yellow convertible that added to his allure as a soldier boy. He dated the prettiest girls in town, and struck a handsome figure speeding up and down Varner road. He drove us to school, some mornings; and we became the envy of our classmates as his pretty, yellow car spit gravel as he left. He was our hero.
James was our one romance with the war. While he was far from any military conflict, he represented that possibility, and it made us proud. I can't imagine what we would have felt had there truly been war; if James had been deferred to Korea, or Germany or the other places young men were sent to fight, and so often, to die. Reality, no doubt, would have set in, and our romance with war would have gone the way of most innocent romances.
America and its romance with war, wanting to believe in an ideal of being Superman to the world. It's time to stare the realities of war smack dab in the eyes - the deaths, the possibility that ridding the world of its enemies possibly breeds other enemies, more terrorist thugs, more infidels holding nuclear weapons in wake. America, let's move on. Leave the rose-colored glasses behind. Like all innocent romances, real war never ends exactly the way they play it in the movies. And, our sons, our brothers, and fathers just keep on dying on other people's land.
Janis F. Kearney is a Chicago writer, former journalist and diarist to President Bill Clinton. A Harvard W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow, she is currently completing William Jefferson Clinton from Hope to Harlem; and a personal memoir, Cotton Field of Dreams.
Kearney Communications 5138 S. Kenwood Ave.#2 Chicago, IL 60615 (773)493-2007 --ph (773) 493-5747 -- fax janisfk@aol.com |
Finally. America's honeymoon with war is fading to reality. Our culture of war, and our love-hate relationship with bombs and guns, is finally being questioned -- not just outside the United States, but inside, too. Our leaders finally coming home to roost, and with them, a slowly building universal crescendo of voices, intoning the white house and the Pentagon, "Enough already. Our children are still dying. Let's put an end to this war."