Ian Lewis' Blog

Apparently the Army is in the business of fabricating stories about soldiers to make them seem more heroic and glorify the war in Iraq. CNN carried a story yesterday about the testimony of Bryan O'Neal and Jessica Lynch about how the Army fabricated stories about soldiers.

In Jessica Lynch's case the stories were about herself and how she was shot and stabbed during a heroic and intense firefight where the 11 other soldiers in her group died. The army then attacked an abulance that was attempting to return her to American forces, and later staged a rescue that was neither necessary or daring as they made it out to be. The hospital staff where she was held indicated that there were no insurgents in the hospital.

In O'Neal's case the Army fabricated a story about how Pat Tillman was killed in Afganistan. The Army reported that he was killed leading a counterattack on insurgents in Afganistan who abushed his group. However, Tillman was shot by friendly fire, shot 3 times in the head, by a fellow platoon member. Bryan O'Neal, the last person to see Tillman alive, at the time knew exactly what happened and that Tillman was killed by another soldier. But O'Neal testified that he was ordered not to tell Tillman's family about the incident.

I can't help but wonder what the Army was thinking. Did they think that the truth would not eventually come out? Did they think that soldiers like Bryan O'Neal would just stay quiet? Did they think that Jessica Lynch would just keep quiet as she was hailed as a hero, even though she was alive and knew the truth that she did nothing special and her rescue was staged? I admit that based on the info at the time it was reasonable to conclude that the rescue wasn't all they said it was (though I don't remember Lynch saying anything to the contrary at the time). But yesterday was the first time where it came from the horse's mouth that the Army deliberately fabricated stories about soldiers that were killed or injured in ways a lot less movie-like.

I think this might help illustrate my view of the fallacy of viewing war as glorious. There is nothing glorious about war. As many, many WWII vets have said about their service (which I might add had a more clear and agreed upon need than our current quagmire), war is not glorious and should not be villified. I think it's a bit disturbing that the 'States has built this kind of culture that glorifies a soldier's actions and suppressing the more gritty and realistic aspects of war. Not every soldier can die for heroic reasons. Some will be killed rather senselessly. That's just the way it happens.

I don't mean to say that soldiers themselves are not great people. Those that I have met who served in the military were in general, good at prioritizing important aspects of their lives (family, education etc.) ahead of trivial things, and excellent and considering others above themselves.

However, I cannot ever see war and military as something that should be viewed as beneficial rather than a necessary evil. Some say that military provides many technological advances that civilans make use of. But if all the wars in the past never happened and we also didn't have the technological advances that came from it, would you trade all the millions of lives of the people that didn't die in those wars for the technological advances? Somehow I can't see anyone saying that a greasy burger is good for you because it has tomato in it.