A Memorial Day Meditation

My cynicism is a voracious and healthily metastasizing one, but it always meets its match on Memorial Day. When I hear the claim that a solider in Iraq died for “freedom” – especially searing when it comes from his/her mother, and perhaps most searing when it comes directly from the soldier him/herself via the “should something happen” letter – I want to believe the claim. At the very least, I wouldn’t dare dispute it. But how can I reconcile this with my belief that the Iraq war is the most ill-founded, ugly, futile thing this country has endeavored during my lifetime? This quandary puts tremendous pressure on the “I support the troops, not the war” formulation. Is that formulation a trick of rhetoric, or is it a substantive claim that really means something?

At first glance, it may seem that the metaphysical status of a soldier’s death does depend on the metaphysical status of the war. If you claim that a war lacks such status or value – let’s say justness, or righteousness – then how can you allow that the engagement of a soldier in that war upholds those (or similar) values? Particularly if that soldier’s “engagement” in the war is his/her death, the potential exists of giving in to the powerful emotional - but nonetheless nonintellectual and therefore illegitimate - instinct to grant worthy status to the soldier’s death.

But what is the internal experience of a soldier who believes s/he is engaged in a righteous war? What is the nature of his/her “sacrifice”? I think we can think of it in contractual terms – the soldier is willing to die to uphold certain values. It is this exchange that makes us invoke heroic concepts of selflessness and courage. When we are evaluating this act, it’s the thought that counts. What we celebrate is, given the worthy metaphysical status of the war, the decision taken and personal sacrifice made by the soldier. The actual truth of the claim that the war has worthy status does not enter into it.

All this is not to be overly glib or romantic about war. Soldiers’ reasons for enlisting and fighting are many and varied; they do not all believe in the justness of the war. And there are especially troubling class considerations that undermine the above “contractual” model of freely offered self-sacrifice. It's not rich kids over there.

Decoupling the metaphysical status of individual soldiers and that of the war not only frees us to honor soldiers but also to sharpen our indictment of the war. Most notably, it helps us rebut the “don’t let them have died in vain” argument (since the administration is always in the market for a retroactive war rationale).

In conclusion: Dear Soldiers, Thank you for everything you've done. Dear Administration, You are a Jerk.