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Opinion

Soldiers don't sacrifice for politics

David Salinas
Opinion Columnist 

"Was it Shakespeare who said, ‘All the world's a stage?' Here was a pageant of men at war. Here was a stage of magnificent setting, but with actors who did not behave like the storied men of earlier wars. Nothing was to be seen of the brave clash of bold spirits. No waving flags, nor battle cries. Just a trudging mass of modern soldiery, closing in on another group of fellows who, for the most part, waited patiently for the climax of this act or phase of conflict to test in each the teaching of their trade: ‘Kill or be killed!'" 

Those words were written in 1918 by Pvt. Elton E. Mackin, United States Marine Corps, describing the looming battle with German forces in Torcy, France, during World War I. In his words you see the essence of war, stripped of the poetry of political catchphrases and prose of long-term foreign policy goals; it is a brutally simplistic matter of life and death. In the heat of the zero-sum, battle soldiers are not thinking of the political ramifications for civilian leaders at home, but of surviving and making sure the men next to them do as well. 

As of Monday, 1,541,802 American soldiers have died in battle, from the Revolutionary War to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Every one of them is a hero, not because of the policy goals they fought to achieve, but because they represented a country and overall cause — though sometimes flawed — that is fundamentally good. They fought for an American cause, not a partisan or ideological one. As Memorial Day passes, it is unfortunate that many in this country still do not understand this.

Pat Tillman died a week before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal went public. The San Francisco Chronicle details how the Pentagon immediately announced Pat Tillman had "died heroically in combat with the enemy," with President Bush describing Tillman as "an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror."

Radio talk show hosts and other media pundits supplemented the administration and Pentagon's lie, turning Tillman into a right-wing caricature. 

In fact, as his mother said, Tillman was an incredibly independent thinker who read Noam Chomsky and had misgivings about the war in Iraq. The most despicable aspect of this episode was the fact that people believed such a cover-up was needed to "make" him a hero. Today, many wonder how the generation of the current war will be remembered 60 years from now. The legacy of the Bush administration hinges on Iraq, but soldiers who have fought there should be memorialized no matter what the fate of the land in which they fought. 

Civilians should understand that when soldiers are on the battlefield, dodging bullets, hoping shrapnel from an improvised explosive device planted by a coward doesn't tear through their flesh, they couldn't care less about politics. Every time we politicize them for any reason, we denigrate and dishonor what they do. They deserve better. 

Salinas, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu