Marines battling in Fallujah, Iraq, 2004 … Marines battling in Hue City, Vietnam, 1968 …

During the height of the Vietnam War, many anti-establishment critics judged the war as immoral, and the Americans fighting it criminals. Something we Vietnam veterans got used to (or not!).

As an American who detests labels, I’m an independent who believes in the Jeffersonian ideal of power ascending from the people to government. (I envision power residing in the people and ascending from the lowliest to highest person to coalesce into government of the people, for the people and by the people.) So it is with personal contempt that I view opinions juxtaposing the ultimate moral question of war with the relative personal lives and morality of those who fight the wars. As if there is no separating the two.

The argument goes as thus:

War is either good or bad as an ultimate truth, or specific wars are good or bad, as a relative truth—and so are those who fight them. Such abstraction judges not by deed but by participation. Yet, it is by deed that warriors are rightfully held individually accountable.

What brought this to mind was an article in the Guardian/UK (Thursday 22, December 2011), entitled "I am sorry for the role I played in Fallujah," written by Ross Caputi. It is a black and white rendering of moral certitude, assigning unmitigated roles of aggressor and victim, of hero and villain, based on his personal judgment of a "war of aggression." Rife with sweeping abstractions, generalities, and unspecific comparisons of different conflicts, this piece is hardly a cogent proposition for attributing universal guilt of American Marines and soldiers who fought in the second siege of Fallujah.

In the complexity of life, survival, and geopolitical intricacies, the all-wise intelligentsia and cognoscenti apparently see beyond the shades of gray. In fact, they see no shades at all. Peering into their all-seeing crystal balls of unassailable righteousness they simply know, judge, and condemn.

Mr. Caputi's apologia is his own individual "realization," ego-centrically applied to all his ilk. He assumes his "enlightened awareness," is presently unrealized in his fellow combatants, and presumes to pity them, while holding them accountable for their unwitting carrying out of evil.

The Guardian seemed content with the lack of literal description of the Fallujah combat by Caputi. Neither were they bothered with the vagueness of his responsibilities during the fighting. We only know that he is twenty-seven now, fought in Fallujah in November 2004, and was discharged from the "army" [sic] in 2006.

This article is long on ideology and short on substantive argument. It is an unfinished painting passing as a masterpiece of art: war simplified into fixed saints and sinners. Ironically, the brutality of war for which Ross Caputi seeks absolution is muted by his offhanded intimation of justified homicide (insurgents) vs. murder (U.S. Marines).

What is missing in this treatment of just war vs. unjust war is the necessity of inner healing for those returning from war. The message of the pain of war within them is what needed to go viral on the web. Instead, what got circulated like gangbusters was this old Vietnam-revisited self-atonement, pointing its self-righteous finger of transferred-shame.

Understanding and validation is what these homecoming warriors need, not the pressure of vindication for the shadow of mortal combat they took on as a duty. They can process their own sins or virtues in their own time, through their own spiritual/religious leanings. They do not need Mr. Caputi to be their judge and jury.

Carl Hitchens

Alpha 1/7, 1st Marine Division

Vietnam 1968-1969

Author of Sitting with Warrior

http://www.drumtalk-hitch.com/Sitting_with_Warrior/Sitting_with_Warrior.html