Tim Heffernan: The measure of war
... Sixteen million Americans served in the Armed Forces during World War II. That represented 13 percent of the entire population, or roughly one in four American men. Of the 16 million who served, 13.1 million were sent to what were at least nominally combat zones. Nearly 300,000 of them were killed in battle, and another half million were injured. If you were alive in the United States at that time, you knew someone who was fighting, and you quite likely knew someone who didn't come home, or came home broken. That war was a universal reality. That war sat in the living room.
Nine million Americans, or roughly 4.5 percent of the population, went to Vietnam. One in 10 American men shipped out. Of the 2.25 million who were stationed in combat zones, "just"—to use an awful term—43,000 were killed in battle. Given the domestic upheaval of the time, Vietnam was, like World War II, also a universal reality, but it, and its victims, sat quietly in the classroom. You knew their faces, but you might well not have known their names.
Where does Operation Iraqi Freedom sit? Just over a million Americans have served in Iraq—roughly 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, or fewer than one man in a hundred. The number of soldiers killed, both in absolute measure and as a percentage of the number of front-line combatants, is, in historic terms, small: 2,322 as of last week. One in 50 U.S. active-duty soldiers in World War II and Vietnam were killed; in Iraq, the figure is more like one in 200.
We are all more or less aware, of course, of the literal cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom (248 billion dollars and change, if you can stomach yet another figure). This makes many of us angry, but the anger is not visceral. Iraq, despite the money being spent, does not really hit our own wallets; Iraq does not hit home. Women of my grandmother's generation grew their own vegetables so that America's farms could feed their husbands stationed overseas. I roast free-range chickens while men like me pick grit out of their MREs in downtown Baghdad. That is one way I mark the difference between this war and those that came before. Another is this: I don't know a single person who has served in Iraq. I suspect that many who are reading this can say the same thing.
So again, where does Operation Iraqi Freedom sit? It sits on the bus to the outer boroughs—the bus you never have and never will take. It sits in the trim house near the Army base in Georgia, or Massachusetts, or Oregon—not one of the soldiers in Iraq was drafted, after all. It also likely sits next to you, on the subway or in the traffic jam, en route to the shiny glass tower where you both work. But unless you and I make a conscious effort to recognize both the historic significance and the human reality of what is happening in Iraq, it will remain anonymous. This war sits at the edge of the room, a stranger we have no reason, except that it is our duty as its hosts, to approach. ...
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Nine million Americans, or roughly 4.5 percent of the population, went to Vietnam. One in 10 American men shipped out. Of the 2.25 million who were stationed in combat zones, "just"—to use an awful term—43,000 were killed in battle. Given the domestic upheaval of the time, Vietnam was, like World War II, also a universal reality, but it, and its victims, sat quietly in the classroom. You knew their faces, but you might well not have known their names.
Where does Operation Iraqi Freedom sit? Just over a million Americans have served in Iraq—roughly 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, or fewer than one man in a hundred. The number of soldiers killed, both in absolute measure and as a percentage of the number of front-line combatants, is, in historic terms, small: 2,322 as of last week. One in 50 U.S. active-duty soldiers in World War II and Vietnam were killed; in Iraq, the figure is more like one in 200.
We are all more or less aware, of course, of the literal cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom (248 billion dollars and change, if you can stomach yet another figure). This makes many of us angry, but the anger is not visceral. Iraq, despite the money being spent, does not really hit our own wallets; Iraq does not hit home. Women of my grandmother's generation grew their own vegetables so that America's farms could feed their husbands stationed overseas. I roast free-range chickens while men like me pick grit out of their MREs in downtown Baghdad. That is one way I mark the difference between this war and those that came before. Another is this: I don't know a single person who has served in Iraq. I suspect that many who are reading this can say the same thing.
So again, where does Operation Iraqi Freedom sit? It sits on the bus to the outer boroughs—the bus you never have and never will take. It sits in the trim house near the Army base in Georgia, or Massachusetts, or Oregon—not one of the soldiers in Iraq was drafted, after all. It also likely sits next to you, on the subway or in the traffic jam, en route to the shiny glass tower where you both work. But unless you and I make a conscious effort to recognize both the historic significance and the human reality of what is happening in Iraq, it will remain anonymous. This war sits at the edge of the room, a stranger we have no reason, except that it is our duty as its hosts, to approach. ...