Those Who Have Borne the Battle (41 page)

The last surviving Union veteran of the war, Albert Woolson, died in 1956 at the age of 109. (The last verified Confederate veteran, Pleasant Crump, had died five years earlier.) Following Woolson's death, the Grand Army of the Republic formally dissolved. Memorial Day did not. By then the old Decoration Day had become a national day for remembering. And it had expanded to include all of those who had died in the nation's wars. By 1956 the number of additional American wartime deaths since the Civil War was nearly 580,000. Since Woolson's death in 1956, 65,000 more Americans have died during the nation's wars. The task of remembering is not easing.

Memorial Day 2011 marked the tenth occasion that this national holiday was held since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. Speaking in New York City, Admiral John Harvey Jr. observed that General Logan would “take great pride” in what this day had become. Admiral Harvey urged that everyone learn and embrace “the silence of our dead,” those “forever young.” He said they died for all Americans, in what he called
“good” wars (pointedly noting, “as if any war could be good”) and in “bad” wars (he wryly observed, “as if all wars aren't bad”).
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The Disabled American Veterans Memorial Day statement also remembered General Logan. And it reminded everyone to “recognize that a life can be sacrificed long after the final shot of a conflict is over. We must recognize too that not all fatal wounds are visible.”
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On Memorial Day 2011, there were parades, ceremonies, and speeches across the country. The Marine Corps Band performed at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on Riverside Drive in New York. Following the parade in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, Monsignor John Hebl described this as a day to “honor those who gave their lives and limbs” for their country, and he reminded that they need to be remembered every day. The
New York Post
quoted at length from the St. Crispin's Day speech in Shakespeare's
Henry V
. Sarah Palin rode on the back of a motorcycle in the Rolling Thunder ride in Washington. Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq paused when possible to remember and to participate in an American holiday. In Kabul, marine general Lewis Crapaotta declared that while this day remembered those who had served and sacrificed, it was crucial “to remember those serving today who embody that same commitment of service and sacrifice.”
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In my hometown of Galena, Memorial Day 2011 was marked by a celebration noting the 150th anniversary of Ulysses Grant and local volunteers going off to join in the Civil War. Six weeks earlier, on April 12, recognizing the 150th anniversary of the beginning of that war, a group had gathered in Grant Park at the Blakely cannon that had fired on Fort Sumter.
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At ball games and at concerts Americans saluted servicemen and -women. President Obama at Arlington National Cemetery laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and said, “The patriots we memorialize today sacrificed not only all they had but all they would ever know.”
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The speeches and salutes were largely background for most Americans who enjoyed a holiday, a respite, marking the start of the summer season. Beaches and volleyball, family and friends and barbecue, work on yard and garden, shopping and visiting; for most Americans this, rather than going to cemeteries or parades, was Memorial Day. As one young man noted, “It's time to throw on the shorts.”

If the distraction was part of the day, not all could join in the festivities. As one soldier in Afghanistan said, “While we were playing volleyball today, no doubt some soldier gave the ultimate sacrifice.” A marine veteran of Iraq wrote that the day had become a “shopping spree, a party.” He acknowledged that it was a changing holiday; in his hometown the parade was “more sparsely attended, and fewer people appear to travel to cemeteries to pay respects to the war dead.”
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The US military command reported seven Americans killed in Afghanistan over the Memorial Day weekend. There were thirty-five American service personnel killed in Afghanistan in May 2011. On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, three Green Berets were killed when the vehicle in which they were riding was struck by an IED near Wardak. Sacramento, California, native Captain Joseph Schultz was on his first tour in Afghanistan. He was married and had served two previous tours in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Martin Apolinar of Glendale, Arizona, was also on his first tour in Afghanistan; he had been deployed in Iraq previously. When he graduated from Trevor Browne High School in Phoenix, his were voted the “prettiest eyes” in his class. He had a wife and a son, Martin. Sergeant Aaron Blasjo was originally from Riverside, California, and he also had a wife and a son, Talon. On his third tour at the time of the fatal attack, his wife, Crystal, said that when she was informed of Aaron's death, “I couldn't stand up. I couldn't do anything.”
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As it turned out, on Memorial Day 2011, the United States was engaged in various types of military actions in four Middle Eastern countries: Afghanistan and Iraq, drone attacks in Libya in support of dissidents there, and, as we later learned, air and drone engagement in Yemen in opposition to some of the al-Qaeda elements challenging the government there. And American forces regularly were pushing the pursuit of Taliban and al-Quaeda into a fifth country, Pakistan. Earlier in the month US Navy SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden in his home seventy-five miles from Islamabad.

The executive branch and Congress were debating whether the Libyan involvement was consistent with the War Powers Act. Meanwhile, there was little doubt that the Yemen actions were secret actions conducted without any prior congressional authorization. The administration would
insist that air attacks were not engaging in hostilities as defined by the War Powers Act.

In light of the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is useful to examine how the uneasy compromises of the 1770s and 1780s are weathering these tests. Old debates are taking on new forms.

The revolutionary generation was fearful of both the political power and the expense of an independent military. They worked out some imperfect but durable solutions to this tension. Most of the early leaders came to agree that a standing military, modest to be certain, was acceptable as long as it was under civilian control. Consistent with this, they assented to a small core of military professionals, including the establishment of the United States Military Academy to train their officers. They believed that this limited standing force would be augmented by militia, the citizen soldiers who would serve in wartime and during military emergencies that required major mobilization of forces. The latter principle evolved from the practice of calling up state militia units to federal troops conscripted under draft legislation. Nonetheless, the concept of citizen soldier remained rhetorically and symbolically intact—and while often exaggerated, it was firmly grounded in the substance of the actual American experience, at least through the Second World War.

The military is still unambiguously under civilian control. It is, however, also the case that the exercise of that control is sometimes quite flaccid. After Vietnam, there is little doubt that in recent military assignments, from Desert Storm to Libya, the armed forces have been cautious and conservative. Their leadership has not instigated—or really even encouraged—military campaigns. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen seemed to be speaking for all of the senior officers when in the spring of 2011 they expressed unease about engagement in Libya. Secretary Gates would quip that the country was already involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: “Let's get this business wrapped up before we go looking for more opportunities.” He noted that as a result of his experiences, he had become “cautious on wars of choice.” This caution was widespread among Pentagon military as well as civilian leadership.
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There is a big “but” here, though. With their bottom-line deference in place, the military is open, if not outright directive, in describing the conditions it finds acceptable. This is not a trivial matter. When civilian leaders, notably in Congress, explicitly state that they would look to military leadership for direction before determining what is the best approach to Afghanistan or whether “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” should be repealed, they are not exercising leadership. They are effectively passing the controls to hands that are not constitutionally authorized to hold them. In 2009 the military lobbied publicly for President Obama to adopt General Stanley McChrystal's recommendations for an increase in American military forces in Afghanistan. Civilian deference and timidity and military assertiveness do not make a good combination.

From Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, the military has had to deal with being assigned complicated military assignments in the absence of clear and consistent civilian articulation of military objectives. And, since Korea, the American military has had to engage in military assignments largely with the understanding that these are actions seeking negotiated rather than military resolution.

In October 2011 President Obama announced that the United States would complete the withdrawal of the final American troops from Iraq by the end of the year. He promised that they would leave “with their heads held high, proud of their success” in this war that already had taken more than eight and one-half years. There was no claim of “victory” in any traditional sense. This announcement came at a time when Iraq's al-Maliki government still faced challenges and instability, when the situation in Afghanistan was tense and relations with Pakistan were more tense; it came a day following the announcement of the death of Mu'ammar Gadhafi in Libya and the scurry there for a government structure; and it came one week after the president had informed Congress that he had sent one hundred American troops to central Africa to advise and assist in the struggle against the rebels' “Lord's Resistance Army.” The Americans were not to engage in combat “unless necessary for self-defense.”

The end of the Iraq war was not followed by any celebratory parade. In fact, the Republican presidential candidates and other critics expressed their disapproval of the decision. There were reports of unidentified military
officers grumbling. Ironically, December 2011 was the date that the Bush administration had first negotiated for the end of US combat operations in Iraq. Plans to maintain a force in the country for training faltered when the Iraqi government would not provide the troops immunity from prosecution. Greg Jaffe wrote in the
Washington Post
, “Even within the U.S. military, there is no broad agreement that the war's outcome should be judged a victory.” At the time of the president's announcement, 4,470 Americans had died in Iraq.
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The United States has effectively used military force to punish, to protect, or to expel—but these have been in all instances initial actions, and in each of these there has been little clear public understanding of the subsequent objectives. American goals in Iraq and Afghanistan have evolved well beyond the original stated objectives of regime change and locating weapons of mass destruction. The United States and its allies achieved these objectives in a matter of weeks. Americans finally captured Saddam Hussein and apparently caused Osama bin Laden to flee Afghanistan, even though locating and killing him took nearly a decade.

It has not always been absolutely clear what the goals in these theaters have been. “Stable and secure” government is an objective hard to define and harder to realize. In this evolving world, tactical objectives evolve into strategic plans, and these become missions. So, inevitably, basic decisions devolve to military operations, and missions evolve from these operations.

It could be argued that the new
Counterinsurgency Manual
issued in 2006 changed the mission on the ground in Iraq and subsequently Afghanistan. The change in tactics was salutary—but that raises a more fundamental concern: that mission goals should not stem from military tactical manuals. Under the counterinsurgency approach, American troops sought to encourage in Iraq and Afghanistan the development of civil institutions and economic growth.

Not everyone is comfortable with using the military for such vague goals. West Point military historian Colonel Gian Gentile, a critic of the counterinsurgency approach, recalled in the spring of 2011 that the ancient Chinese warrior and philosopher Sun Tzu wrote, “Strategy without tactics is a slow road to victory, but tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Gentile worried that the American Army in the current wars
“has become consumed with its tactical operational framework of counterinsurgency and nation building, which has perhaps eclipsed better strategic thinking.”
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The American 2011 objective in Afghanistan is stabilizing a government through counterinsurgency warfare. This was not the purpose in 2001. It is not that missions and goals should not evolve; the trouble is that this evolution needs full vetting and venting in a democracy such as ours. And in this process someone might ask if these missions are still primarily military missions. In many ways, they are not, of course: rules of engagement restrict utilization of full military power, while young servicemen and -women are civic affairs officers and economic and agricultural advisers. The prior question, needing resolution in the processes of our republican government, is whether these are desirable and appropriate American goals and priorities. A recent analysis raises the important question as to whether the United States can be successful in these sorts of operations involving “asymmetric warfare.” Successful counterinsurgency requires more troops, more resources, more time than Americans are likely to support.
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