Pro Patria
I have on my MP3 player, because I'm weird this way, original recordings of a number of famous historical speeches. Yesterday I listened to FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy."
I'm not an FDR worshipper the way Zinn and the intelligentsia, through their exertions in every history textbook in the land, would have me be. Leave aside the politics, the morality of the New Deal and of the man himself. What I heard was a president who was presidential. He had a firm voice, a command and a sense of the script he read, the palpable gravitas talking heads profess to seek today, that now seems comical only because it is so improbably characteristic of a real politician. His speechwriters didn't mince words or deny reality, and this is key -- they acknowledged explicitly the reality of war:
"American industrial genius, unmatched throughout the world in the solution of production problems, has been called upon to bring its resources and talents into action. Manufacturers of watches, of farm implements, linotypes, cash registers, automobiles, sewing machines, lawn mowers, and locomotives are now making fuses, bomb-packing crates, telescope mounts, shells, pistols, and tanks.
"But all our present efforts are not enough. We must have more ships, more guns, more planes -- more of everything."
No speechwriter, no president, would come within a million miles of that today. We don't have planes, guns, bombs. We have terror, victory, dedication, faith, and a glut of "resolve." I wonder if each generation since my grandparents' is bound to become less acutely aware that war is hell, that death exists.
I also received yesterday an issue of my (high school) alma mater's glossy, blancmange, suck-up-and-ask-for-money alumni magazine. It tells of two grads who were Marines killed in Iraq. Their faces look familiar. I probably passed these boys in the hall.
The magazine quotes the Cincinnati Enquirer: "Marines were killed Wednesday when a huge bomb destroyed their lightly armored vehicle, hurling it into the air in a giant fireball." I'm no expert, but I'd guess that their bodies were blown into several different pieces, most of which were immediately incincerated into a fine red spray, and that's what's left of them.
When I was a sophomore, one was a junior and the other was a senior. I probably ate lunch at a table near one of them, or shared an elective with one of them, or stood near one of them at a pep rally, or worked a canned food drive with them. There probably aren't many complete pieces of them left. They should be like 25 and 26 and they were blown into a red mist that evaporated in the hot Iraqi sun.
One of the things that most scares me about Generation Y is how anesthetized they are to this, how much it is for them an abstraction. Ours are all-volunteer armed forces (for now), and a smaller than ever portion of the population makes up the armed forces. It has been decades since we had a president who could talk about the realities of war the way FDR or Eisenhower did. It may be that we no longer have a populace that has enough sense to understand and be scared that their boys could be shipped off to war and converted to red particulate spray by a roadside bomb or a few dozen rounds of .50 auto at close range.
Dulce et decorum est, one might say, were he more cynical than I.
I'm not an FDR worshipper the way Zinn and the intelligentsia, through their exertions in every history textbook in the land, would have me be. Leave aside the politics, the morality of the New Deal and of the man himself. What I heard was a president who was presidential. He had a firm voice, a command and a sense of the script he read, the palpable gravitas talking heads profess to seek today, that now seems comical only because it is so improbably characteristic of a real politician. His speechwriters didn't mince words or deny reality, and this is key -- they acknowledged explicitly the reality of war:
"American industrial genius, unmatched throughout the world in the solution of production problems, has been called upon to bring its resources and talents into action. Manufacturers of watches, of farm implements, linotypes, cash registers, automobiles, sewing machines, lawn mowers, and locomotives are now making fuses, bomb-packing crates, telescope mounts, shells, pistols, and tanks.
"But all our present efforts are not enough. We must have more ships, more guns, more planes -- more of everything."
No speechwriter, no president, would come within a million miles of that today. We don't have planes, guns, bombs. We have terror, victory, dedication, faith, and a glut of "resolve." I wonder if each generation since my grandparents' is bound to become less acutely aware that war is hell, that death exists.
I also received yesterday an issue of my (high school) alma mater's glossy, blancmange, suck-up-and-ask-for-money alumni magazine. It tells of two grads who were Marines killed in Iraq. Their faces look familiar. I probably passed these boys in the hall.
The magazine quotes the Cincinnati Enquirer: "Marines were killed Wednesday when a huge bomb destroyed their lightly armored vehicle, hurling it into the air in a giant fireball." I'm no expert, but I'd guess that their bodies were blown into several different pieces, most of which were immediately incincerated into a fine red spray, and that's what's left of them.
When I was a sophomore, one was a junior and the other was a senior. I probably ate lunch at a table near one of them, or shared an elective with one of them, or stood near one of them at a pep rally, or worked a canned food drive with them. There probably aren't many complete pieces of them left. They should be like 25 and 26 and they were blown into a red mist that evaporated in the hot Iraqi sun.
One of the things that most scares me about Generation Y is how anesthetized they are to this, how much it is for them an abstraction. Ours are all-volunteer armed forces (for now), and a smaller than ever portion of the population makes up the armed forces. It has been decades since we had a president who could talk about the realities of war the way FDR or Eisenhower did. It may be that we no longer have a populace that has enough sense to understand and be scared that their boys could be shipped off to war and converted to red particulate spray by a roadside bomb or a few dozen rounds of .50 auto at close range.
Dulce et decorum est, one might say, were he more cynical than I.
posted by Q at 6:45 PM
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