This one got lost in my ‘drafts’. Thought I’d drag it out and finish it after reading one of Sowell’s latests.

Besides the food, wine, company, and scenery, one of my favorite parts of my recent vacation to france was visiting Normandy. The Beaches of Normandy themselves are like a giant outdoor museum. We also went to to the Peace Museum in Caen, a city that was practically oblitterated during the war. Ironically enough, the Peace Museum is really a war memorial museum. Since we planned to visit the Normandy beaches, the boyfriend and I spend most of our museum trip looking at the WWI and WWII exhibits. The Franco-German armistice communications and the lead up to France’s call to arms was very interesting, but what intrigued me the most, was reviewing the period of time between the two World Wars, a historic period I’d last studied way back in my highschool Holocaust class. For those who are as deficient in historical studies as I am, here is my very brief perspective on how the Germans came to power.

If it is a stretch to say “we all know that the Nazis didn’t take control of Europe overnight,” it shouldn’t be. I’d like to think that most people would not be surprised if you told them that the Nazis’ domination of Europe took over 10 years (“Well, yeah, I mean, it’s not like you can blink and miss something like that”). So how did it they get away with it for so long?

I was fascinated with that question and the implications in trying to answer that for myself. I knew that we didn’t just blink and miss it, but it had been so long since I had thought about it. How did they get away with it for so long? If my recollection of Mr. Gerstein’s Holocaust studies is true, I recall thinking “how could so many nations collectively turn their heads and ignore the seizure of one nation after another by the Nazis?” I think that in hindsight, knowing of the attrocities committed by the Nazi regime, it seemed even more ridiculous to think about turning the other way and allowing Hitler to rise to power. But in reality, it is so much easier to see how this could happen.

WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Germany was not even supposed to have a navy after the signing of the Treaty at Versailles. That was in 1919. When Hitler took power in 1933, he began seeking the rearmament of Germany. Rather than bitch slap him, the league of nations shook their heads and said, well, all they want is to have a military, so lets let them have it. After all, we don’t want to start another conflict. That was 1936, I think. Then, 2 years later, Germany annexed Austria. Again, the league of nations does nothing because, well, Austria belonged to Germany anyways, so why not let them have it. After all, in the wake of WWI, nobody wanted to spark another conflict with Germany.

Here’s where things get a little hairy, at least through my non-history buff eyes. Rather than attempt and muck up the sequence of things, I’ll grossly understate these historic events leading up to the invasion at Normandy as follows: France agrees to an armistice with Germany, peace at all costs blah blah blah. There was of course much wailing and gnashing of teeth as the Nazis proceeded to take over Paris and french ports, eventually leading Churchill to order an attack on French Naval bases to prevent the Nazis from seizing control over the French Navy and spreading to Great Brittain. Charles de Gaulle issues a call to arms, full blown war is eventually declared.

The take home message, for me, was that the “peace at all costs” mentallity provided the Nazis with the room to rise to power.

I thought back to the vivacious comparisons of Bush to Hitler. How ironic it is that the same folks who are making these comparisons typically support socialist ideas. Know who else called themselves socialists? The Nazis. ‘Course they really weren’t, and I would not make light of any comparisons to Hitler (Hi, I’m jewish), but helllooooo irony.

I remember sitting across from two ARMY soldiers at RDU a little over 2 years ago. I was at RDU because I had been attending the graduate recruitment weekend at UNC Chapel Hill, and had been flown in to Raleigh-Durham, wined, dined, and recruited at the expense of the university. I remember relishing the feeling of having doors open, being recruited, of having opportunities awaiting as I spent the month of March being flown to and from several universities for these recruitment activities. The soldiers sitting across from me were 18 and 19 years old. They were flying to base and were deploying for their first tour – in Bagdad.

When I look back on that day now, I feel ashamed of myself, because when I looked at these young men, I saw “tragic sacrifice”, not “honorable, selfless devotion.” I recall that I felt something like anger, perhaps it was youthy angst at the injustice of the world; that I had all these opportunities before me, and here were two “kids” who were being “sent off to fight a war” – a war that I considered unnecessary, a war that I thought perhaps could have been avoided. I remember having a sour feeling in my stomach, a general feeling of discomfort, you know, the feeling you get when you don’t quite know what it is but you know that you’re upset. I wanted to cry while I sat on that airplane, because I felt fear for these “kids,” and I wished I could go up and hug them, but they were on a different plane.

When I look back on that day now, I still feel ashamed for the way I perceived these soldiers, but I feel humbled by the devotion and sacrifices they give. I still sometimes feel angry and upset about the whole middle-east situation because I find it hard to feel good about war.

…

“The universe does not care about motives”

A lot of my perspectives began to change when I started shooting. I’ve talked about the way shooting has influenced my views on responsibility. The more time I spent with guns, the more I began to understand that a few seconds can make a difference between life or death. I noticed a huge improvement in my muzzle awareness; I think that having more and more experience on the business end of a gun made me very aware of how undesireable it would be to have that end aimed in my direction. The above quote is from a gun essay titled “Ethics from the barrel of a gun”, and is worth a read, if you haven’t already.

I noticed the influence that shooting had placed on the way I viewed combat when I watched “Flags of our Fathers” last August (heavy movie, don’t expect to be in a good mood after watching it). Upon viewing the combat scenes, I experienced a kind of discomfort that was new to me. I felt the imminent danger, sympathetic fear, and twitched in my seat. For some reason, it occurred to me while watching this movie that the bad guys don’t care about partisan politics – not when it comes down to the front, anyways. I thought, “if I was being shot at, I don’t imagine that my foremost concern would be the other guy’s motives, nor do I imagine that politics would factor into my reaction.” I didn’t sleep well that night. Thinking about “the war”, and war in general still made me upset.

I was no longer perceiving soldiers as pawns of the government, but as a group of people working as a collection of many units. The safety of our soldiers is more important than the political coloring of the motives of the people who hand down the orders. I realized that I didn’t have to agree with the politics of the war, or of the people who hand down the orders. The soldiers on the front are not “doing the dirty work” of the higher ups. They are trying to defend themselves, protect each other, and protect innocent lives. When it boils down to the moment, politics don’t matter.

…

One of my friends from High School is an A-10 pilot, and has toured Afganistan. He posted this picture and the following caption:

“They got ambushed and this guy took a round into the magizine, which then somehow ricocheted into his hand. But he did better than his buddy standing next to him who lost his right eye and another guy who lost a leg. They were still in the middle of the fight when we showed up and within 15 meters of the Taliban. That was the first time I had to wait (b/c of the close proximity) for them to medevac guys before lighting up the enemey. It’s a hard 5-10 minutes to be hovering overhead and waiting while you’re f-ing pissed and ready to rock.”