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Reflections
of Ken Towery
Reflections
on Now, and Nov. 11, 1971
By Ken
Towery
The Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon
We probably all benefit by
admitting, once in a great while, that we have been wrong
(on occasions). This will be one of those admissions and one
of those occasions. In the process we will do a little
reflecting.
Once upon a time, gentle reader, we told the Commander of
America's JFK Special Forces School in Georgia that this
country would never accept what he was proposing. It now
appears we were wrong, so we might as well 'fess up.
First, we need to set the stage. The time was in
the early 70's, November 11, 1971, to be exact. The Vietnam
War was raging. Television sets were nightly bringing scenes
of carnage into the living rooms of America, along with
comments on the futility of the war and the inhumanity of
the war. Widespread riots and ÒdemonstrationsÓ were
taking place all across the land. Lyndon Johnson had left
the scene, driven out of office by those same
ÒdemonstrationsÓ, and splits within his own party. Lyndon
was back at his ranch near Stonewall. Richard Nixon was
President, and I was Deputy Director of the United States
Information Agency, and Director of that agency's Office of
Policy and Plans. For the edification of those who were not
around at the time, we were then engaged in a "cold war"
with the now defunct Soviet Union. They, that is, the old
Soviet Union, had as many nuclear missiles as did we, and,
as far as we (the United States) were concerned, much more
of a willingness to use those weapons. Times, in other
words, were very tense.
A little more background, which many of today's
Lamplighter readers will recognize as redundant, but which
may be of benefit to younger readers: The Vietnam situation,
as most Americans remember, was a long, drawn-out affair. It
was also a special kind of war, placing American troops in
situations they had not known before. Nor had the officers
who commanded those troops been involved in similar
situations. They too were on a learning curve. On top of all
that, they (or we) had a Commander in Chief, Lyndon Johnson,
who insisted on micro-managing troops in the field. That
would, perhaps, have been acceptable had the Commander in
Chief any experience on the battlefield, but he had not.
What Lyndon lacked in battlefield experience, he made up for
in personal ego.
President Kennedy had created, prior to
Johnson, and within the structure of the Army, a Special
Forces Unit, called "The Green Berets" because they were
given special headgear to distinguish them from regular Army
troops. They were made ready at an advanced training school
in Georgia.
These Special Forces were to be the "elite" of Army
troops in Vietnam. (I understand they are still around, and
are operating in Afghanistan, and in the Philippines even
now.) They were supposed to be, once turned to duty, the
best trained, the best informed, the most courageous, etc.,
etc.
For reasons I did not understand, I was
asked to conduct weeklong lectures for that yearÕs
graduating class. Perhaps the authorities felt my own
military service, including defense of Corregidor and
the subsequent POW years, had left me with certain
experiences which might be helpful, if tapped. (They, the
officers, were at that point in their training, studying
certain aspects of psychological warfare.) Perhaps it was
because I had previously lectured at the Army War College at
the Pentagon, and had received certain recommendations. To
this day, I donÕt know the reasons for the invitation, but
it came, and I went.
At any rate, they were most courteous. The lectures were
greeted with standing ovations (honest) and they gave me a
beautiful memento which even today stands in what I would
call an honored position in our home. It is inscribed "from
the Officers and Men, USAJFKCENMA/USAIMA November 11,
1971."
When the lectures were completed, on November 11,1971,
and before I caught a plane back to Washington, the
Commanding Officer invited me by for some farewell thoughts.
He first expressed his gratitude for my having come, then,
in a somewhat more expansive, more worried mood, he asked,
in so many words, "what are we going to do?"
My interpretation was that he was an honest, conscientious
officer, one who saw his long- term mission in life as one
of protecting the United States. But he was worried. He just
did not know how they (the military) were going to
accomplish that mission. Every night, on television, he saw
images of body bags feeding into American homes, with
commentators reciting how many were killed today, and
yesterday, and last month. He saw the American people being
influenced by that television coverage, and he weighed the
whole against what he saw as the ultimate legacy of America
on the world scene. His job, their job, was to protect
America, go fight its enemies, and give up their lives if
necessary. But it appeared to him that America no longer
wanted that protection, if those who determined the nightly
visions on television truly reflected American thought.
The old British Empire was gone. The only kid on the block,
other than the Soviet Union, was the United States. It would
be up to us, he said, to take England's place, with "the
battalions being rotated" to hot spots all around the world.
At that time the Soviet Union was very much a going concern,
with global ambitions. There were no indications that they
would give up the ghost anytime soon. The only power that
stood between them and the realization of that ambition was
AmericaÕs military and the willingness to use that military,
if need be. The "hot spots" would occur, he thought,
regardless of our wishes. Vietnam was merely one of those
hot spots. There would be more. The need to defend America
would remain constant, he thought, regardless of current
public opinion. In that case, again, "what to do?"
It was at that point where I made comments that have
been, in the light of all that has happened, deeply
troubling.
I told him that I did not believe his
scenario would hold, that I did not believe America would
ever tolerate any war, for long, in which the nightly news
featured body bags of returning dead American soldiers,
unless the nation had first been conditioned to accept those
losses. I told him also that I thought, as things stood
then, American television had more influence over American
foreign policy than the American State Department, or the
Department of Defense, or any other arm of government, and
that this was not necessarily good. And I said then that in
any future wars, a way would have to be found to engage the
entire body politic, in order that they might not feel
isolated and foreign in an undertaking of which they were a
part, as was the case, I felt, with the Vietnam war. In
short, my thoughts were that any future war would have to
involve the psychology of the nation, as well as its
physical strengths, if we were to be successful. Any
military action would have to be swift and decisive, before
opposition could mount. Otherwise the body bags would
determine the story.
Now that we have troops in the Balkans, in Western
Europe, in Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia, in the air over
Iraq, now that we have been to Somalia, Grenada, Panama,
Central America, now that we have begun the trek back to the
Philippines (all with barely a peep from the American
electorate), I find myself thinking back to that
conversation with the Commanding Officer. Was he right
in saying America would have to accept the philosophy of
"rotating the battalions" around the world on the order of
the old British Empire, or was I right in saying America
would never accept the business of nightly "body counts" on
television?
Maybe we were both right, but I now feel he was more right
than I.
Maybe America is ready to project its power, as long
as there is no likelihood of daily body counts on evening
television. Americans do not seem to be upset with the loss
of American life in distant lands, if that loss comes about
as the result of downed planes, or errant missiles. But the
loss of life in grinding ground warfare is something else,
especially if that loss is brought into America's living
rooms on a daily basis. It is only then that the electorate
seems to begin weighing the effort against the gain.
(Perhaps people like me should welcome this situation. As
one who saw all his military service on the ground, in
combat, while others flew or sailed to combat and then
returned to more comfortable surroundings, we would have to
say we regarded ourselves as the least appreciated of all
those in the service of their country. If one of us came up
missing for roll call, we might rate mention in the local,
hometown newspaper. Otherwise, nothing would change.)
What has brought about this change, if it is indeed a
change?
In the first place, I am not at all sure there has
been a vast change in human reaction to battlefield
bloodshed. I believe the outcome of America's horrible Civil
War would have been different, had television cameras been
there to record the hideous carnage while biased TV. anchor
persons lamented the loss of life, and ignored the reasons
for the conflict. (As they did in reporting on the Vietnam
War.) A way would have been found, somehow, to shorten the
war. A way would have been found, simply because of public
political pressure, to arrive at a peaceful solution. (In
which case, some of my own kinsmen might have lived a little
longer.) The same could be said of any war, or of all
wars.
While our reaction to battlefield bloodshed may not
have changed greatly over the years, the way, or the manner,
Americans view war in the abstract has changed dramatically.
Simply because of technological advances (if those changes
can be considered advances), war has taken on a completely
different color.
Television cameras have the capacity of involving the whole
nation in the actions, or feelings, of a few. A child falls
down a well, and immediately the whole nation becomes
concerned with his or her welfare. An airplane hits a
building in New York, killing thousands, and the nation
reacts in horror. The tragedy takes on a personal aspect all
Americans feel. Three American soldiers stray from their
patrol in Macedonia, or some such place, and America is
caught up in concern over their treatment.
But while television has the capacity of bringing the
brutal aspects of war into American living rooms, it also
has the capacity for making war and its casualties seem far
away and impersonal, in places we've never heard of, with
bombs launched by cruise missiles, or drone aircraft, with
most, if not all, casualties on the other side.
That, in itself, has changed the way
Americans view war, in my own opinion. They do not object,
seemingly, to a war involving Americans as long as that war
can be confined to sending airplanes or missiles to distant
places. It is only when body bags begin to show up on
nightly news that the reality of war begins to trouble
Americans. It is a matter, in a way, of "out of sight, out
of mind."
So, concerning AmericaÕs role in the world
that is about to be, what are we going to see in the years,
and decades, ahead? Obviously, harking back to the talk with
the Special Forces officer in Georgia many years ago, my own
predictions, and my own predilections. must be suspect.
About all any of us can do is weigh our expectations in
terms of our own experience. With our experience constantly
changing, our expectations can only change too. That, in
itself, can cause uncertainty.
ThatÕs about where we find ourselves today, a little
confused, a little uncertain. Our President has declared a
war on ÒevilÓ, for good and sufficient reasons. He has
tried, with a good deal of success, to condition the public
mind to what is ahead. But the struggle between good and
evil has been with us a long time. It is a never-ending
struggle. It will continue long after we have heard the last
of bin Laden, even after historians judge the people and
events of this time. And in that struggle, different people
will define evil in different ways. A Palestinian, seeing
Israeli bulldozers destroy his home, will define evil quite
differently than will an Israeli who sees a Palestinian
react to that bulldozer in a violent manner.
Our worry is simple. How will future wars be
defined? How will this and future wars be fought? With what
weapons? When will peace be declared? How will that peace be
defined? Is it even important that peace ever be
declared? Is this a war in perpetuity?
These are questions all Americans could ask, but
only our Constitution can answer. We are fortunate, at the
moment, in having a President the people trust, or a goodly
majority trust. They are willing to cut him some slack. But
what will be the situation in the future if America is faced
with the twin problems of having a bin Laden on the one
hand, and on the other hand a President whose
principal goal seems to be one of satisfying personal
lust?
WeÕve been around politics a long time. We think
we understand some of it. (Some, we donÕt). We can readily
understand, from a political standpoint, the value of the
PresidentÕs war on "evil." But even so, we believe it is
good for the country that its President recognizes the
struggle and publicly says so. (Some years ago an old friend
and prospective Presidential candidate named Pat Buchanan
uttered the thought that America was in a "cultural war." He
was ridiculed off the political stage.)
Time changes everything. I hope, should the
Officer who then trained Special Forces ever reminisce about
our conversation, heÕll cut me some slack as well. I was
only partly wrong.
© copyright, 2002 The Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon
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