Who Fights Our Wars: Marine Veteran on a Local Train

-->

Recently I rode to Philadelphia from Lancaster. After 50 miles, I knew I was going to be late, so I rode to a station and caught a local train.  I had to walk to the end of the first car with my bike. After ten minutes, I stood and turned around to adjust the bike.  A guy two seats away traveling with his grandson. When I sat back down he said, “When did you serve?” He saw the tattoo on my right leg.  I told him when I served.

He told me he was a Marine in Vietnam, 1969-70. He pulled his t-shirt to the right at his neck to show me two scars on his shoulder where he was shot. He told me briefly about the fire fight, about getting hit twice and the medics carrying him away from where he fell. His grandson, who was about 20 smiled as his grandfather told the story.  Clearly, he had heard before how his grandfather was wounded, but he liked that Grandpa had someone to talk to who was also a veteran.

In telling me the story of his getting wounded and going back into combat, he said several times, “Best year of my life, worst year of my life.” That got a smirk out of his grandson who clearly heard that phrase a lot. Then the Marine said, “Wait, you re-enlisted and went to Iraq? You must have been……”

“…..56,” I said. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” 

He laughed. The grandson laughed with us. Then the conductor called the stop and they got up to leave.  Both waved as the walked up the aisle.  He was proud of those scars and clearly had vivid memories of getting wounded. But he served in an unpopular war.  I hope there are people thanking him for his service and listening to his stories now. I’m glad I got to hear his story and see his grandson’s face as we talked.

The Philosopher of War and Terror and Politics: Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt 1906-1975

Today a friend asked and I were talking about politics and how refugee problems have led to wars in the past. Then we talked about how much current trouble stems from the way countries handle refugees at their borders. 

Which led me to recommend the books of Hannah Arendt. I am an obsessive reader. Arendt is one of about a dozen authors of whom I read most or all of their work.  So I thought I would make an annotated list of Arendt’s works. 

Hannah Arendt is a philosopher. She studied under Martin Heidegger, completing a PhD in 1928 at age 22 at the University of Heidelberg.  She escaped Germany in 1933 moving to France then to America where she became a citizen and is identified as an American Philosopher. 

I comment briefly on the books I have read. I also include at the end the books I have not yet read.

Eichmann in Jerusalem: Arendt’s most well-known book and most controversial is not philosophy, but reporting for the New Yorker magazine about the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.  In this book Arendt uses the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Eichmann. Because Eichmann was responsible for deporting three million Jews to Death Camps, many wanted to see him as evil incarnate. But he was a failed salesman with a talent for logistics, a failure twisted into evil, not an evil mastermind.

Origins of Totalitarianism is a long and brilliant work on how modernity and the crisis of refugees and stateless people led to both world wars and to the creation of totalitarian states in Russia, Germany and later in China.  The book also clearly defines totalitarianism as a new form of government based on isolation and terror that did not exist before the 20^th Century.

The Human Condition: This brilliant book is not about Human Nature, but the circumstances of our collective life.  The book begins with the launching of Sputnik and the effect that event has had on all of humanity. 

On Revolution: The book I am reading now about the relatively modern phenomenon of revolution. She describes how the American Revolution succeeded and why nearly every other revolution has failed. 

Love and Saint Augustine: This book was her PhD thesis. I have never read anyone who better understands Christianity and what happened to the faith when it went from the margins to the center of political power.

Between Past and Future is a book of essays. All the essays are good, but the essays on education and tradition are stunning in their insight and how much they speak to problems right now.

The Promise of Politics follows up on the Origins of Totalitarianism with more analysis of Marxism and how the world of Ancient Greece, particularly Athens, still sets our expectations in the world of politics.

I have not read her collection Jewish Writings or Men in Dark Times because they essays are about the lives of people who I am unfamiliar with and Arendt takes for granted that the reader will know the work and significance of the subjects. I also have not read The Life of the Mind nor have I read On Violence. That will be next. If Democracy fails in America as it has in every other nation on earth. I want to have Arendt’s advice on violence fresh in my mind. 

If I could only read one book by Arendt, it would be The Human Condition. I wrote something on EVERY page of my copy. Next would be the Origins of Totalitarianism. Then Love and Saint Augustine.

I started reading Hannah Arendt shortly after I returned from Iraq.  I did not know it at the time, but in November 2016 I would become a political activist. Hannah Arendt describes clearly the best of politics and the worst. Because of Arendt, I am keenly aware of what political activism really means.  

-->

Battle of the Tanks, Kursk, 1943: A Review

-->

In July of 1943, the German Army’s ability to attack the Soviet Army ended in smoking wrecks and twisted bodies.  The German attack on Kursk was supposed to turn the war around and put the Wehrmacht back on the offensive. A series of delays that gave the Soviets time to prepare massive defenses doomed the attack from the start—before the start.

In his book, Battle of the Tanks, Kursk, 1943, Lloyd Clark tells the story of Kursk beginning with the rise to power of both Hitler and Stalin. Clark makes the case that the strengths and weaknesses of these two men made the biggest tank battle in history inevitable.

Clark mixes eyewitness accounts of tank crews and other soldiers on both sides with the high-level view of Generals and the two Supreme Commanders.  He begins in the 1930s when both leaders consolidated power and traces decisions on both sides that led to what remains the largest tank battle in the history of the world. 

One of the key differences between Hitler and Stalin in the view of Lloyd is that while both retained the title of Supreme Commander, Stalin was willing to name Georgy Zhukov his deputy and ceded much power to him in deciding the conduct of the battle. 

Hitler trusted no one else. In the view of most of Hitler’s generals, the battle should have begun on schedule in April. In Kursk Hitler repeated his error of 1941 in delaying Operation Barbarossa until June 22.  Hitler held back his forces until the arrival of Panther and Tiger tanks.  But in the three months that the Germans delayed, the Russians added layers and depth to their defenses.   By July, the Russians were dug in and outnumbered the Germans nearly two to one.

In the grinding dozen days of battle total casualties far exceeded a million killed and wounded. The Russians lost more men by far than the Germans, but, as the Germans lamented, the Russian reserves seemed inexhaustible and the German reserves were exhausted. 

After Kursk, the German Army fell back for nearly two years until the Soviet Army captured Berlin.

Lloyd does a good job of telling the story of the battle as well as keeping the broader context. 

Animal Farm: George Orwell's Story of the Soviet Union and Revolution

The original title, Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

On July 3, I was talking to a friend who mistrusts politics of every kind. After thinking about what he said, I realized the George Orwell’s book Animal Farm agreed with him. I re-read Orwell’s tale, alternately laughing and cringing at this dark view of human nature. 

The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. Like many other tales in this genre, before Disney, this fairy tale ends sadly.

Animal Farm can be read as a very good re-telling of the history of the Soviet Union from the death of Lenin until the end of World War II.  For years after the death of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky fought for control. Trotsky was a revolutionary idealist. Stalin was ruthless. Stalin won.  And over time, Stalin erased the memory of Trotsky and other heroes of the Revolution.

Orwell’s tale also describes the fate of nearly all revolutions except the American Revolution.  I will be writing later about Hannah Arendt’s book On Revolutions. She explains why America did not descend into the fate of France, Russia, and nearly every revolution of the last two centuries. 

In the revolt on the Manor Farm, the animals throw the farmer off his land and run the farm themselves.  The pigs are the cleverest creatures and take over management of the farm.  At first they set up a socialist utopia, but strife begins, especially between the two pigs vying for leadership: Napoleon (Stalin) and Snowball (Trotsky). Eventually Napoleon trains attack dogs and exiles Snowball.  He continues to consolidate pig power, until finally the pigs make friends with their human neighbors and oppress the rest of the animals as badly as the humans. 

After overthrowing the Tsar, the common people of Russia ended up with worse oppression in the form of the Soviet Union. By the end of Animal Farm the animals other than pigs were worse off than they were under the farmer. 

My friend’s view of politics is vindicated in Orwell.  Checks and balances are all that stands between any nation and its own Animal Farm. Orwell said his goal in writing was to promote Democratic Socialism. He wanted to ensure no ruler could consolidate absolute power, left or right. 

So I can read Orwell as a call to go and fight for democracy. My friend can read Orwell as a parable of why political involvement will lead nowhere good. 

We both agreed in our conversation, that the history of the Church taking power was simply bad.  Every government run in God’s ends with people saying they are doing God’s will when they crush others.

In Animal Farm the pigs set up a government based on Seven Commandments of how animals should behave. Over time the pigs violate, rewrite and finally erase all of the commandments and replace it with a new one: 

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

--> Every theocracy, every tyranny, every authoritarian government could use this motto.

Who Fights Our Wars: Sgt. 1st Class Thomas, Gospel Worship Leader, Tanker

In the 70s chaplains came to the Army with graduate degrees and credentials as Priests, Pastors, or Rabbis from their religions.  The chapel system tried to cover every spiritual need. But the chaplains also recognized their limits.  So in the Wiesbaden Military Community in the 1970s, the very proper Colonel in charge of the chaplains in the community authorized a Gospel service every Sunday night in the main chapel. 

The Pastor of the mostly Black congregation on Sunday night was Sergeant First Class Thomas (I can’t remember his first name). His Sunday night services were long, loud and a sharp contrast with the United Methodist morning services. 

The choir in the Gospel Service numbered more than fifty, singing, swaying, clapping and shimmering in blue robes. The service began and ended with music and prayers. In the middle was a sermon with deep lows, soaring highs and its own rhythm. 

In his office in battalion headquarters of 1st Battalion, 70th Armor, Thomas was the re-enlistment sergeant.  He enlisted in the early 60s, served two tours in the Vietnam War in infantry if I remember correctly. He switched to Armor later.

He filled out the endless paperwork required re-enlist. But the calm, detail-oriented man behind the retention desk was on fire in the pulpit.  He could deliver lines that were dire warnings in a way that would make me smile even while I felt the cold wind of condemnation blow in.

He would grab the pulpit with both hands.  He would hesitate, look directly at the congregation, then beginning in a low voice say, “Only your own faith will open the doors of Heaven. Sittin’ in a garage don’t make you a car, and sittin’ in this Church don’t make you a Christian! –at this point his volume was close to max – Only your own personal faith in Jesus will get you into Heaven.”

Another exhortation to personal faith delivered from low to crescendo ended with “We must be children of God. [Long Pause.] God don’t have any grandchildren.  Your grandma’s faith won’t get you to Heaven. And don’t you think you are foolin’ that faithful woman. She knows you need faith, and a whoopin’!”

After Wiesbaden, the next time I went to Black Church was in the summer of 2007.  I was in a neck and chest brace after a near-fatal bicycle accident. We went to an African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Lancaster City. My wife and I were two of the three white people among hundreds of people in the pews. It was a new and delightful experience for my wife. For me, it was just like the Wiesbaden Military Community.

A few months before our visit, I made the casual remark to my wife, quoting SFC Thomas, that 11 a.m. Sunday was the most segregated hour in America. Soon after, my wife started visiting Black and Latino and other Churches. They were very different the Presbyterian Church we attended. 

As was true in Wiesbaden, the Lancaster preacher illustrated his sermon with vivid metaphor. But the best and most memorable moment for us was when the minister called the children to the front of the Church to listen to a story.  He retold the story of the Good Samaritan as a man shot and left for dead in a side street right near the Church.  A preacher walked past the bleeding man, a star football player from the neighborhood walked past the man, and then there was a hush. The preacher told about a man who picked the wounded man up out of the gutter, took to the emergency room and paid his bill. 

Who was this man? 

The preacher boomed:  A man from Lititz! Yes, a man from Lititz saved him. The man from Lititz was truly a neighbor.

The kids clapped. The adults laughed. I thought I was going to re-break some of my cracked ribs I was laughing so hard.  Lititz is the whitest, richest suburb of the city of Lancaster.  A man from Lititz is the best replica of a Samaritan in that neighborhood.

When the adults calmed down the preacher asked the kids, “Who is this man’s neighbor?”

After a pause, a little girl said, “The football player.”

Now the preacher was laughing too.

I could imagine SFC Thomas loving that localized story of the Good Samaritan.