Disconnect

This morning I read Bob Herbert's commentary/obituary on former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Some writers have tried to look back at the big picture lessons learned, some--having had a personal connection to McNamara--wrote about the man and general lessons to be learned from his flaws, and some have continued to force analogies to Vietnam on to the current conflicts.

There is a difference between learning lessons from the past that can be instructive for the future and forcing bad analogies with the past.

An example would be something I was discussing with one of the other guys here as we drove around Balad. I mentioned how all the crazy MRAP-type vehicles that look like they were taken off the set of a "Mad Max" movies weren't even in the military inventory 2 years ago. Now they are ubiquitous...

Pundits used to say that the Humvee would be to OIF what the Huey was to Vietnam. No one here drives Humvees anymore. We adapted, we found something better suited, and we fielded it on a mass scale half-way around the world. It may have seemed to take forever but when you see the sheer scale of the effort up close, it is amazing.

Even more amazing, and instructive to me about the failings of all our forced analogies, was when the guy I was riding with wondered how WWII could have jump started the economy but this awe-inspiring production, logistics, and support achievement has not. The answer to me, in my relatively uninformed, non-expert, grass-height level view of the world is that world and our economy are all so different from 70 years ago. It's not that deep, I know.

The economy is so much bigger even as technology has made the world that much smaller. We all long for the unified purpose of WWII. But part of that is more myth than reality.

There are enduring lessons. That is part of why we study history, why we can always look to the Pelopenisian War and see a reflection of our own hubris, why Sun Tzu is still read thousands of years later, and why David Galula found a new following within the military. But just because we like to say that the more things change, the more they stay the same, we still have to recognize how that little saying does acknowledge that change occurs.

This takes me back to Bob Herbert talking about Vietnam and exporting his Vietnam-ere draftee experience to the present. Iraq is not Vietnam. Afghanistan is not Vietnam. Vietnam today is not Vietnam then.

My first thought when he laments that the deaths of Americans in Afghanistan now are just as pointless as the deaths of his peers in Vietnam years ago was how little how care what he, or just about any Op-Ed writer, thinks about such things anymore.

Most of the team I trained with for this rotation is in Afghanistan. Our exercises focused on the combat scenarios they would face. I get regular updates on their fight. I have no doubt that ensuring the Taliban, as a movement and ideology, do not become the dominant force in South Asia is very much a strategically significant cause. But that's not the point right now.

My gut reaction really is to say to hell with him and his irrelevant ranting (pot meet kettle... I know). None of us care anymore. This whole post is more inspired my lack of rage at his simple dismissal of the sacrifices of my peers than by anger. Herbert hides his insult with the illusion that he is painfully speaking the needed truth to power that only he as a draftee victim of McNamara can. Rep David Obey talks about Afghanistan as if it is Vietnam and he will do his moral duty of giving a new president an arbitrary timeline and then fight it (I wish all politicians had the moral courage to not only come out against Vietnam in the late 60's after being elected from a liberal district but then do the same thing 8 years into another war...).

So I guess here's the point of this stream of consciousness:

I hope that my generation, particularly us veterans and the few of us that were actually connected to the war, are not as limited by it later in life as our current crop of aging commentators and politicians have been stunted by their selective memories of Vietnam. I'm sure it will alter our perspective on things, but we must learn from it and grow.

I really hope this whole Vietnam-colored-glasses phenomenon is just another example of boomer narcissism and entitlement and not some enduring human or at least American inability to see beyond our own experiences.

Forty years from now, I don't want to be that guy forcing an anology from how I remember Iraq on to our children's fights. I hope I'll have something intelligent and worthwhile to contribute, just like I hope have that now.

Of course, forty years from now, I hope the world is smart enough not to give me a soap box of equivalent significance to a syndicated NY Times Op-Ed column. God help us all.

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To clarify, this isn't meant as a personal attack on Bob Herbert or a denigration of his service to this country. My personal politics and overall philosophy are definitely to the right of what I find in his writings, but I still read his work regularly and usually appreciate his insights.

David Obey, on the other hand... I categorize him with Harry Reid and the 2006/2007 comments meant to undermine the change of strategy here in Iraq. I respect their offices, that's about it.

Lest you think I'm being too partisan... the GOP is too actively making itself irrelevant on these issues for me to care much what they say.

I know, this whole thing is a rambling mess.