Today’s New York Times (registration required, or use bugmenot) bemoans the fact that in this war, no “war heroes” have merged. No widely distributed tales of a single soldier rescuing his unit or tons of innocents, no General Custers fighting to the death on princple, even if the cause is lost.
Well, you see, the reason this war has no war heroes is because in order to have heroes, you need to have a worthy cause. World War II was rife with tales of valor and bravery, of people making sacrifices, and that’s because we look at that war and we can all agree that the cause was just, the potential ramifications of inaction were dire, and if we didn’t fight, we may as well have surrendered. The veterans of WWII really had no choice going into this war, but they did they job and saved the day. They are heroes.
Soldiers in today’s “war” however, are getting the short shrift. They were thrust into this war under an administration who was quite happy to make us believe that Saddam was responsible for bringing about our own modern-day Pearl Harbor, and that he had tons and tons of WMDs that could wipe us out if we didn’t act.
So, they went, also having no choice, really. And then the story began to unravel. Were there really WMDs in the hands of Saddam? Well no, not really. Did Saddam really collude with al Qaeda and help finance 9/11? Well… no, not really, though our subsequent invasion of Iraq gave al Qaeda a great entree into the minds of militant Iraqis who took offense to the incursion. But hey, Dubyah got to do his daddy proud, puttin’ the smackdown on mean ol’ Saddam. So who cares if the pretenses were false?
Well, we all should care. You can’t have heroes if the cause isn’t genuine. That’s the sad lot our troops have been dealt. And as you fill your tank with inflated gas prices resulting from a failed energy policy, you can thank Dubyah.