I have frequently written on patriotism, “supporting the troops,” the cost of war as measured in “bullets and dollars” and, most important, on the cost of war as measured by the sweat, blood, tears and lives of our valiant troops. This, while Americans back home are not asked to sacrifice in any meaningful manner, and are even encouraged to “go shopping.”
My words, however, are woefully inadequate when compared to a powerful, heart-rending article that appears today in my hometown newspaper.
The column, titled “Military draft would end America’s two-faced patriotism,” in my opinion, eloquently expresses sentiments and emotions that so many of us have felt so strongly over the past eight years, but have not been willing or able to express.
I will share a couple of them here.
The author, Joe James Sawyer, who was in the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) 1st Special Forces from 1963 to 1966, writes:
The cost of asymmetric warfare is evident in the growing numbers of young Americans coming home with horrific injuries inflicted by improvised explosive devices. The lives of those wounded soldiers are shattered — they come home missing limbs, blinded, brain damaged.
There is no end in sight. For all these years, we have carried on a national debate about the necessity of these wars and the terrible cost they carry. That dialogue has been, in the main, dishonest and hypocritical.
[In all the wars we have fought in our history] [A]ll Americans shared the pain when young lives were lost or forever shattered in America’s battlefields. The rich and the poor, black, white, red, yellow and brown — all of us — knew the grief, the loss and the suffering of Vietnam.
.
.
That is no longer true and has not been for far too many years.
He continues:
There are generations of American men and women who have no sense of service, fidelity or sacrifice. There are far too many among us who believe patriotism is to be found in waving flags and wearing yellow ribbons.
We are sending the same men and women to theaters of combat over and over, without relent. This simply cannot continue. It harms our country to do so. It cheapens any claim to patriotism by Americans who wave flags and profess to honor “our” troops while their children will never know what it means to serve the flag of the United States. Just as their parents have never known.
After claiming that others will do “the sacrifice of dying” while “the children of privileged Americans…are sheltered from any threat of having to defend their country” and while enjoying the right “to rant about the need to fight, to display their flag-waving courage and continue their feast unabated,” Sawyer points to the need to again have a universal draft: “If war is to be waged, we all must contribute; we all must sacrifice. Without that, we truly become hollow men.”
Sawyer concludes:
The time must come again when all Americans fight our wars, shoulder to shoulder on the field of combat. Only three things are required to make this come true: a sense of fairness, a sense of duty and a sense of honor.
Regardless of what your position is on the military draft, I urge you to read all of Sawyer’s moving words here.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.