Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Why non serving people are not necessarily Chicken Hawks
A few weeks back Mitt Romney got asked a question about why his five sons are not serving in the military. At the time his answer, at least as proclaimed by the media, was not particularly positive. Though his central point - that our military is all volunteer, and that his sons are responsible for their own choices.
But what about others, like me, who could have volunteered for the military after 9-11, support the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and did not. Does that makes us chickenhawks?
I happen to be a theologian, and it is not unusual in both academic and non-academic settings to be challenged, “How can you support an unjust war?” I have many answers to this, some of which are posted here. Those are arguments about the role of war in the Bible, and the reasons for this war, and why it must be won.
But I have been asked a time or two, why I am not serving. The idea is that I am a modern day Michael Dukakis:
Here is what the anti-war people miss in the “ChickenHawk” chant:
1) Joining the military is not just about going to war. Most of our armed forces are not in combat. If it was only a question, like the Minutemen, of volunteering for a few days or months in Iraq, then this might be the case.
2) The military is an alternative country. I am a military brat - my dad served 20 years and so did my older brother. The world outside the military is vastly different from that which is inside. Asking why I have not joined the military is on the order of asking why I have not moved to Peru.
3) The military has a lot of great thing about it, but it also has a lot of what has been known for decades as chickensh*t. It takes special people to put up with all that of that chickensh*t.
4) When I was 17 and considering going ROTC, I spoke to both my brother and dad about whether or not I should join. They both told me the same thing - that I do not have the personality to tolerate and do well in military life.
5) Because I live here in Colorado Springs, I intereact with military people all the time, and get to know many of them personally in church and Sunday school. I ask them if they despise me for not joining, or view me as a coward. They always say the same thing - the military is a life, not merely an exercise in courage.
and 6) courage is a two headed animal. There is physical courage - that which enables our men and women to drive into Iraqi suburbs knowing there are those who want to kill them. That kind of courage is a great gift, and most of us never get to know whether or not we are endowed with that type of courage. But the other type is moral courage - the willingness to make hard decisions and live with the outcomes. Our military men and women laregely seemed blessed by both (if you look in history, many of our worst generals had great personal courage, but they lacked moral courage - see Generals McClellen, Burnside and Hooker in the Civil War). All of us get the chance to live with our decisions and exercise moral courage. The courage to stand behind our troops is what my father, my brother, and my friends ask of me. As long as I am showing moral courage - they support my decision not to follow them into combat. Most military persons don’t think of me or people like me as cowards or chickenhawks. They simply want to know we support them in seeking victory.
So, do I see myself as another Dukakis, as strange ontop of tank as he would be? Perhaps, as I will never know whether I have physical courage to risk in times of danger (James Lileks on the day after the bridge tragedy in Minnesota, believed that seeing that bus in its predicament would have tried to save those kids as well - I hope so). If they decide to start drafting 37 year old theologians with three kids and two bad shoulders, I will serve and do so gratefully (note - my grandfather, wounded at the Battle of the Bulge in WW2 pretty much fit this bill, so don’t laugh).
The Left and the anti-war crowd thinks I have no right to support the war unless I am going to enlist (my son is only 3 so I think he is safe from such questions for a while). If my friends and family in the military are telling me the truth...it is these chickenhawk callers who need to question whether they are willing to live with their choices - old moral courage - if we lose this war and America does become a land where the things we all value are no longer present.
