Another little aspect of the ugliness of war. We, Americans, Brits, Europeans in general, may have progressed from this malevolent practice–executing soldiers for supposed cowardice--since World War I but . . .
A book, Forgotten Soldiers:The Irishmen Shot at Dawn by Stephen Miller, released early this year in the UK, is not currently available in the United States, if ever it will be.
Forgotten Soldiers chronicles the deaths by firing squad of twenty-eight Irish men serving in British regiments during World War I. Author Stephen Miller explains how these men, often exhausted by battle, or suffering shellshock, refusing to fight, were stigmatized as cowards, and dispatched at dawn by firing squad.
http://www.play.com/...
This is one aspect of that story:
War shame ended by plea of a daughter
Woman's tale of anguish helped end decades of shame for the families of executed 'deserters'
Henry McDonald, Ireland Correspondent
Sunday October 28, 2007
The Observer
The tears and testimony of a 93-year-old woman whose father was shot for cowardice during the First World War led to a pardon for him and other soldiers, a new book reveals.
In October 1916 Irish-born Private Harry Farr was executed for cowardice while serving with the West Yorkshire regiment. Ninety years later an emotional encounter between his daughter, Gertie Harris, and a British government minister started the process of overturning decades of Ministry of Defence policy.
For the first time, former War Veterans' Minister Tom Watson has admitted his meeting with Harris in the summer of 2006 prompted him to force the MoD to change policy and grant her father and other shell-shocked troops a pardon. . . .
Talking to the minister, Harris revealed that her family was left penniless and homeless because her mother was not entitled to a military pension. Harris recalled how her father's execution was kept a family secret for decades because her mother was deeply marked by stigma and shame. . . . at the end of Harris's 40-minute speech on how the execution had blighted her family's life, Watsonhad tears in his eyes and MoD officials who accompanied him were surprised at his emotional reaction.
When Harris left Whitehall, Watson turned to his civil servants and said: 'We will have to sort this out.'
Until then, successive Labour and Conservative governments had refused to pardon soldiers executed for cowardice. In 1993 John Major rejected the call for pardons, saying it would rewrite history. Five years later John Reid, then a junior defence minister, concluded pardons were not necessary as there was insufficient evidence. . . .
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/...
We, perhaps, are more fortunate now because we recognize the existence of post traumatic stress syndrome, PTSD, and its occurrence in those who have served in combat.
In the fallout from the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a book published in the wake of the anguish created by the U.S.’s misguided incursion into Vietnam, Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Vet, Your Family, and Yourself by Patience H. C. Mason is now worth its weight in gold, paperbacks selling for no less than $75 a copy.
But, $75 is very cheap compared to the $2.3 trillion unaccounted for in the Iraqi adventure:
The War On Waste
Defense Department Cannot Account For 25% Of Funds — $2.3 Trillion
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29, 2002
(CBS) On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.
He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.
"In fact, it could be said it's a matter of life and death," he said.
Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11-- the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten.
Just last week President Bush announced, "my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending." . . .
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
And that was back in 2002, and billions and billions of dollars ago.
It is estimated that in time U.S. incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq will cost $2.4 trillion. One wonders how much the bill will total after we load those awesome bunker busting bombs onto our redesigned B-2 bombers, a mere piddling $88 million to do so, and blast into Iran for an extended misadventure. $10 trillion? $20 trillion? Infinity?
Will Dick Cheney and Norman Podhoretz personally load the bunker busters on the B-2s?
Will George W. Bush get to don a flight suit again?
Will documenting war costs ever take into account the costs you can’t measure? Shattered minds and hearts and bodies? Families in despair? Damage to our nation’s infrastructure as our nation’s resources are poured into the increasingly hungry war machine?
And what about cowardice? True cowardice? The cowardly Democratic Congress which refuses to rein in a power- and war-mad executive? Who are the true cowards?
Not those who tremble in fear after experiencing life in a combat zone.
I think that we must remember that the true cowards, the true malingerers, are those who blindly lead us or push us unwillingly into war, while they, the screaming warmongerers have never experienced active military service in a combat zone.
Easily shortlisted in the realm of cowardice and malingering: George Walker Bush, Richard Bruce Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld (served in the military, not in combat), Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dennis Hastert, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity. . . as far as rightwing pundits go, any name will do.
For extended jollification, refer to the card deck of Republican Chickenhawks:
http://www.chickenhawkcards.com/
Oh. One more little gem of a book: Why War Is Never a Good Idea, Alice Walker.
Get it for your kids. Get it for yourself.