For Memorial Day

The title of Phil Klay's reflection says so much: "How Should We Honor the Dead of Our Failed Wars?:

Klay is a U.S. Marine veteran of the Iraq war; he muses

This year, when I remember them, I will not just remember who they were, the shreds of memory dredged up from past decades. I will remember why they died. All the reasons they died. Because they believed in America. Because America forgot about them. Because they were trying to force-feed a different way of life to people from a different country and culture. Because they wanted to look after their Marines. Because the mission was always hopeless. Because America could be a force for good in the world. Because Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden didn’t have much of a plan. Because it’s a dangerous world, and somebody’s got to do the killing. Because of college money. Because the Marine Corps is cool as hell. Because they saw “Full Metal Jacket” and wanted to be Joker. Or Animal Mother. Because the war might offer a new hope for Iraq, for Afghanistan. Because we earned others’ hatred, with our cruelty and indifference and carelessness and hubris. Because America was still worth dying for.

The full article is worth reading.

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The last member of my family to die in one of our wars, Naval aviator Commander James Kent Averill, was lost in 1944 in a plane crash on take-off from the USS Lexington  after refueling in the Pacific Ocean. He had served since commissioned from the Naval Academy in 1931 in various aspects of building up U.S. air capacity over the Pacific, a pioneering effort at long distance air war.

This was three years before I was born, so I did not know him. Averill's war, the war against the Japanese empire following on its attack on Pearl Harbor, was one of our few conflicts that most Americans have ever felt wholeheartedly in support of. The notion of a "Good War" -- against Japan and Hitler's Germany in Europe -- has left us haunted and a little confused about our military efforts ever since. We still ignore the vicious race subtext (on both sides) of the Pacific war. And we expect that our wars should be "good," though they don't qualify somehow. 

And so we're back to Phil Kay's questions to his fellows about why they fight ...