I drive past the Crafton exit off I-79 a few times a week on my way to play beer league hockey, and often think about an Army friend who grew up there. He was a Pittsburgher through and through, down to the unique accent and peculiar expressions that were foreign to me, as I had never even visited the city I now call home. He had a Terrible Towel displayed in his office and relics from Three Rivers Stadium in his house.
We deployed to Iraq together back in 2006. I was fortunate enough to come home. He wasn’t. I spent my 30th birthday convoying through the desert of western Iraq to tell a mutual friend that our Pittsburgh buddy had been killed.
Seventeen years later, on this Memorial Day weekend, I can’t help but think about what he was robbed of. He wasn’t a man of extravagant tastes. He appreciated the simple things that make life worth living, the sorts of things we too often take for granted.
Never again would he be able to tailgate a Steelers game on a lovely fall afternoon, the sun setting serenely over the Ohio, or cook up some of the wings he was so proud of making and wash them down with a few I.C. Lights while watching the Pens.
Nor would he be able to experience some of life’s transcendent joys, like hearing a newborn baby’s first muffled cries as she enters the world at UPMC Magee, bringing her home for the first time, and then being blessed to witness milestones like her first words and steps.
A dreamed up war
Because of a war dreamed up by a small cabal of neocon theorists, sold on lies and distortions, and signed off on by cowardly politicians, my friend will never get to do any of these things. Instead, he now rests about 15 miles to the south of his hometown in the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Feith, Chalabi. These people did not make a policy error. They did not just poorly execute a war plan (though that they surely did). They told brazen lies. They began planning the Iraq invasion within hours of the 9/11 tragedies, with no evidence of an Iraqi connection to Al Qaeda or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They manipulated Congress, the media, and our allies to cause unspeakable chaos and destruction.
None of them has been held accountable. Many have gone on to prosper in academia, government, and corporate board rooms. The people who lobbied for, and then prosecuted, the war that robbed him of future joys have been enjoying the very same pleasures their disastrous decision deprived him of. An appalling number still have the nerve to weigh in on foreign policy.
Not one of them has had the decency to come forward to the American and Iraqi people and confess to the carnage they caused. What, then, is to prevent this from happening again?
Was this war of choice worth my friend’s life? Would the results of this war justify this one loss, even if it were the only one?
No.
As a young infantry officer preparing to deploy to Iraq, I imagined what it would be like to tell the family of a soldier I was responsible for that their son and brother had perished. What could be worth introducing such pain to innocent loved ones?
It occurred to me that perhaps decisions regarding whether or not to go to war should be informed by a simple question: Could one explain the reason for war clearly and truthfully, in a way that would at least make sense to a grieving mother, even though nothing could ever erase the pain of her loss?
The only crucial question
As I drafted this imaginary letter, one thing became clear: It couldn’t read like one of my graduate-school international relations papers, with abstract references to democracy promotion or regional deterrence. The question had a powerful way of cutting through the sort of wonky theory Beltway poohbahs employ in foreign policy journals and on think-tank panels, and drilling down to the only crucial question: Was the conflict truly necessary to protect the American people, or to avert a humanitarian catastrophe so unambiguously horrendous as to demand an international response?
But how can we re-introduce a human dimension into discussions of war and peace, the dimension that these decision makers pay lip service to but often seem unable to truly appreciate? How do we get the families of those risking their lives on the frontlines a seat at the policy-making table that has for too long been dominated by intellectuals, senior brass, and corporate chieftains?
The answer is simple: Re-institute a draft. (By this I mean a term of mandatory civilian or military service.) Only when more Americans have skin in the game will we begin to have robust debates on the real costs and benefits of overseas military adventures. Of course, the foreign policy establishment will lobby vociferously to prevent this from happening.
Though they will cite many reasons, they won’t mention that they don’t want the heightened oversight of their fiefdoms that would come from a more engaged American public. Does anyone think, after all, that our leaders would have been allowed pursue quixotic goals in Afghanistan for nearly twenty years with minimal oversight, and little evidence of success, if more Americans had been paying attention?
Regular citizens should have a vote when it comes to the lives of their sons and daughters. Much has been made of efforts to “preserve our democracy,” but little has been said about how citizens should have some say in a healthy democracy’s decisions of war and peace.
We are now seeing the same dangerous cycle playing out with a small group of influential media personalities and retired generals lobbying for a more confrontational military posture abroad — which could escalate to combat despite our best intentions — while the rest of us go about our lives comfortably undisturbed. A draft would at least ensure that these decisions receive the scrutiny they deserve, and that if we are persuaded that military action is necessary, we will have the manpower necessary to prevail.
And, just as importantly, when a young person is killed, we will be able to look a devastated parent in the eye, and clearly explain why.
Will Bardenwerper, a former Army infantry officer, is the author of “The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid.” He lives in the Pittsburgh area. His previous article was “Talking about the inmate Saddam with the inmates at San Quentin.”
First Published: May 24, 2023, 10:14 p.m.
