The Cost of War Made Personal

09/30/2008

The Cost of War Made Personal

by The Reverend James R Young

My Father, Benjamin Young, grew up in a household that hunted the lands regularly. He was comfortable with guns and handled them expertly and safely. His family hunted everything from small game to birds to deer, even doing some trapping to help pay bills. Then my Dad, fresh out of high school in 1936, joined the Army.

He had other funny stories, but there were far fewer of them after the start of the Second World War. When he got back from the war, he got rid of every gun he owned and never touched another one again. Dad nearly always refused to say anything at all about the war. The only topics he'd even consider discussing were interesting countries that he had seen and the wonderful people he'd met. I have a copy of a charcoal sketch of my Dad made during the war that is eloquent in its sadness. It was done by a young soldier who was a commercial artist before the war. It is signed "Private Morris, November 1944, Somewhere in France." Dad commented only briefly on the sketch: It was made in a foxhole and Private Morris died 2 days later in battle. I pressed my Dad to tell me anything more about what it was like to fight in the war. He said flatly that he would not, that if any vet ever offered to tell battle stories he was, in all likelihood, lying. And that was the end of it. When he died in 1972, those terrible memories died thankfully with him.

I have a very hard time physically and emotionally watching violence on television and in film. That is why I waited to watch Saving Private Ryan until it came out on home video. I was reasonably certain that I could not have watched in a theater. I was right. The chaos, the intensity of the violence and the utter randomness of death and injury in the opening scene of the Normandy invasion was so distressing to watch that I had to stop it for a while before I could resume the film. All I could think was how did my Father - or anyone- survive that? Later I worked up the nerve to ask my father-in-law, Bob (who was also a World War II veteran) if that scene was at all realistic. He thought for a while and finally, very quietly said, "It came the closest of any war film I've ever seen but it still didn't come close to the reality."

Many years later I have come to understand in just a very small way, the emotional wounds that my father, my father-in-Law and veterans like them to this very day carry with them. I have spoken to a few veterans from active duty in current combat zones, and all I could do was to thank them for the willingness to serve their country with honor. All the while I was thinking of the cost to veterans like my Dad and to veterans today who suddenly came home and were told that they could go back to their lives. The emotional and psychological support for vets and their families is getting better all the time, but can we ever really know the intrinsic costs of war - even to those who come home with no physical wounds? I recently spoke to a veteran who was in a combat zone for many months and saw no action. Even he is having trouble getting used to life as it was before the tour of duty because of the stress and uncertainty that were his constant companions.

It's no secret that I have had serious misgivings about the Iraq War from the outset - but NOT in the way that our armed forces have served our nation. The financial costs of the war will continue to haunt us as a nation for years if not decades. But can we ever truly begin to count the human cost in physical, emotional, and spiritual terms? I'm not sure that we ever will appreciate those costs of this or any war.

The Rev. James R Young is the Rector of Christ Episcopal Church, Albert Lea, MN, and is a member of Paths to Peace in Freeborn County.