War and peace

Yesterday I received a card from a friend, thanking me for my service to our nation. Several thoughtful cousins and uncles sent e-mails ... it's a Veteran's Day tradition in my family, to remind each other that donning a uniform still means something.

I'm not the kind of guy who wears his feelings on his sleeve, but these things bring tears to my eyes every time: a heartfelt rendition of the national anthem; a military funeral; photographs of soldiers departing for a war zone; photographs of soldiers coming home.

My service was not heroic. I have a drawer full of decorations, but they're all of the "been there, done that" and "hey, you did a pretty good job" variety. In Central America I helped clean up the mess Hurricane Mitch left behind. In Bosnia, I spent nine long months helping enforce an uneasy peace, then went back a couple of times just for the heck of it.

On five widely separated occasions, my military leave and earnings statement reflected an extra $150 for serving in a combat zone, but I never saw combat.

I've seen the aftermath of combat, to be sure. And I've witnessed the evidence of genocide. I've picked my way through minefields one careful step at a time; I've ducked at the sound of AK-47s on full automatic. But, so far as I could tell, those weapons were never aimed at me.

My experience in uniform in many ways was very different from my cousin Mikey's ... Mikey, a small, wirey Cajun and one of the sweetest guys you'd ever hope to meet, spent a large part of his tour of duty in Vietnam with a flashlight in one hand, a .45 in the other, searching out the enemy in a warren of tunnels.

I can only imagine how terrifying that must have been, and the courage it took to do that particular job.

The men and women serving in Iraq right now are in a no-shit war. Every day they go outside the wire, they can be sure that someone is going to try to blow them up or take a shot from a sniper's hide high over the street.

What I have in common with them, and with Mikey, is ... well, not much, probably. But there is this: the central feature of military service is the complete abnegation of the service member's will.

We call that order and discipline; it doesn't much matter if you'd rather not go down that tunnel. If your platoon leader says go, you go. It doesn't much matter if you'd rather not join a foot patrol through Sadr City. If you're told to saddle-up and hit the street, you go.

It doesn't matter if you're a reservist with a life and a job and a family; when the deployment order comes and you're sent off to some godforsaken corner of the world for close to a year, you go.

When a service member takes that oath and dons that uniform, he or she gives up the ability to choose. That sailor or Marine or airman or soldier doesn't have the luxury of saying "yes" to this war or operation or patrol, and "no" to that one.

No matter one's personal feelings about the rightness or wrongness, the effectiveness or usefulness, of an assigned duty, one acquiesces. It's what you do when you've signed on to become part of the terrible, swift sword of your nation's foreign policy.

To my mind, that implies a sort of social contract. Politicians, who decide when and where and how to employ this nation's armed forces, have a moral obligation to do so wisely -- to do so judiciously, for only the clearest reasons and in accord with whatever values we can all agree we share.

The civilian leadership in this country has an obligation to provide the military with the tools it needs to do its job. Those leaders also have an obligation to make sure the sacrifices our men and women in uniform make count for something ... that they're not in vain.

It's a tall order, and a heavy burden. But no heavier than a year on the ground in Iraq, or a year in the tunnels of Vietnam.

I am troubled that so few of the members of Congress -- about one quarter, today -- have themselves served in the armed forces. Even fewer of their sons and daughters go to war ... or peace.

It should be no surprise that military service in the United States peaked during the mobilization for World War II. Some 76 percent of American men today between the ages of 70 and 74 are veterans. Less than 10 percent of men under 30 are veterans.

In 1994, for the first time, the percentage of veterans in Congress dipped below the percentage of veterans in the population at large.

Historically, military service was a prerequisite for high political office in this country. It should be, still.

Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Secretary of Defense, has been quoted as saying that, during the Vietnam War, he "had other priorities."

Congressmen and senators and presidential advisers should know first-hand, should feel in their bones, what their antiseptic decisions in a hearing room or office in Washington mean to the young men and women in uniform.

Often enough, those decisions mean life and death.

In 2004, a civilian employee at Dover Air Force Base (whence nearly all overseas casualties arrive home) sent a photo of a flag-draped coffin to a newspaper. A Freedom of Information Act request ensued, and hundreds of like photos were released to the public.

That was a mistake, according to the Pentagon, and the U.S. Senate shortly thereafter joined the Bush Administration in banning the release of such photos.

Ostensibly, the reason was to protect families' privacy. That, of course, is as absurd as it is transparent.

Sen. John McCain, a thoughtful veteran, put it this way: "These caskets that arrive at Dover are not named; we just see them," he told the New York Times. "I think we ought to know the casualties of war."

In the national discussion about whether or not our military interventions are achieving our government's policy; as we debate what that proper policy should be; as we count the enemy dead and the civilian casualties; as we tally the costs of war and peace, we should never lose sight of the human cost paid one soldier -- one mother, father, daughter, son -- at a time.

It may be that we, as a nation, agree it is a fair trade; we may count the cost acceptable. But we owe it to our troops -- the living and the dead -- to add each forfeited life, each broken family, every orphaned child into that equation.

However that math comes out, there is no doubt in mind that we owe our men and women in uniform -- those who serve today, and those who served before -- our heartfelt thanks.