War by Sebastian Junger (Introduction) w/Jesan Sorrells

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells and this is the

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Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

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episode number 170.

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In one of the ever expanding parts of

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historical and cultural understanding of war,

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part and parcel of the legacy of World War I

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down to our time currently, is the idea

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among civilians who have never been to

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war who romanticize the act of killing people and

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breaking things. They look at war

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as a furnace in which the dross of

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complicated and uncomfortable human emotions

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are burned off, and a

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furnace in which or from which emerges

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a mechanical, hard

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man who can do the acts of killing and

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breaking things that a civilian themselves cannot

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do. In our modern time,

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in our post modern American moment,

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where the percentage of the available male population who

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actively serves in the Military is at

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0.8% or less than 1% of the available

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male population, the understanding of what

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exactly goes into making war and the

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psychology of the actual soldier

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himself, and yes, in some cases herself,

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the understanding of that has been lost in a haze

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of mythology, massive cultural inexperience,

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biased media reports, and of course,

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institutional, political and cultural

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biases. What is

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understood even less is

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why the men who do go and serve in the US

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Military fight in the first place. It is

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incredibly difficult for the vast majority of the population in the United States to understand

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at a visceral and emotional level the impetus that

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leads young men to go fight and die in places that are hard

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to find on a world map and that seem to be meaningless in

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the larger scheme of living daily life in a

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complex, postmodern, wealthy and incredibly comfortable

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society like the United States of America.

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What exactly are the young men and sorry ladies,

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my apologies. It is still, even in these times of relentless

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insistence upon gender egalitarianism in every

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facet of life, mostly young men

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fighting for. A better question might

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be who are these young men who serve fighting for?

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And what can civilians take as lessons from that

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level of visceral commitment and apply to their non

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combatant lives, draped, as I already

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said, or drowned, depending upon your perspective, in

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comfort, wealth and the most productivity

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out of any human civilization in the history of humanity

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today, on this episode of the podcast we will try. We will

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attempt to extract multiple themes that may

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potentially provide a pathway to an answer to

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some of these questions, particularly these

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questions that arise from our critical, skeptical

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postmodern minds. And we will

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be using the book today War

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by Sebastian Younger

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leaders dedication to filling and

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fulfilling promises with honor even to the point of

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death, cannot just be a marketing

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position with no actual meaning and

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sacrifice in the real world.

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So as we open War by Sebastian

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Younger, going to point out a couple of different things

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in this episode today. So as usual with

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copyrighted works, particularly copyrighted works that are, were

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that are, that are not in the public domain

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as war is not, we do not read directly or

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we read minimally directly from the book. If we read it all

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instead, what I’m going to do is I’m going to summarize the book and point

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out what I think are some key themes in the content

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for you to pay attention to when you pick it up and,

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and read it. The other thing that I would recommend in

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looking at War and in reading it in

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is thinking about sort of the context in which it was

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written and the time frame in which it was written. So when you

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open it up, there’s multiple different versions, but

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this first paperback edition was published in 2011 by

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Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers out of

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London. Obviously the material is copyrighted to Sebastian

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Younger. And the version that I have

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when you open it up has a table of contents and then it has a

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map. You turn the page and it has a map of the locations that are

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referenced in the material in the Korengal Valley.

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So Camp Blessing, Firebase Michigan.

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Let’s see the Korengal Outpost, Firebase Phoenix,

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OP Restrepo, the location of a,

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of an IED attack now near Firebase

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Vegas, which you’ll find out more about that in the book

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Hill 1706. And like I said, Op

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Restrepo. By the way, I’m going to put this out there early. If

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you get the movie or you go see the movie Restrepo,

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that is a companion to this book. So

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this book is a reporting, not a reporting. It is the reporting

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on the war. In the war, the battle in

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Afghanistan for, for the Karangal Valley that was

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conducted by Sebastian Younger, who

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at the time was writing for Vanity Fair and was an embedded

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journalist with the 2nd Battalion in,

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in Afghanistan. And he along with his,

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along with his, his photographer

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Tim Harrington reported

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as a result of their five trips to the Korengal Valley

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between June 2007 and June 2008 again for

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vanity Fair magazine. That feature length

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documentary that they produced is called Restrepo. And Tim Harrington

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is no longer alive. He actually died in an Believers either an

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IED attack. I think it was an ID attack if I remember

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correctly, in Syria, reporting on the Syrian civil war

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many years later, which of course was a knock on effect

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from our efforts in Iraq.

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So the book is set up in the table of contents,

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is set up into three, three parts, right? So you have book one,

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Fear, book two, Killing, and book three, Love.

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And you begin to see as you read each one of these books what the

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themes are that, that,

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that Sebastian Younger is able to pull

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from the interactions he has with the

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men of 2nd Platoon.

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It’s also interesting to note that

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he does not talk about politics in this

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book. One of the points that he makes is, is that

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it’s, and it’s, it’s, it’s kind of, it’s kind of a

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good point actually. He

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says that, oh gosh, it’s early in

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the, in the first book in Fear, when he talks about

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kind of who the men are, he talks about, you know,

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o’ Byrne and the rest of the men of Battle Company. He

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talks about the Chinooks and the Apaches,

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the, the, the background

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of, not that background, but the, the folks of the

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10th Mountain Division who were in that part of Afghanistan

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before, before 2nd Battalion showed up.

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And of course he talks about the Taliban there.

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One of the points that he makes is that,

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huh, politics

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don’t matter when the bullets start flying.

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And that’s a huge point right away or huge theme right away

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that comes out right away initially in book one, Fear and

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runs like a, like a, like a thread

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throughout the entire remainder of this book,

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by the way. It’s also set up as a classic reportage kind

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of document, kind of on the line of what Joan

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Didion would have, would have done or Hunter

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S. Thompson if he still been alive

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and interested in doing something like this.

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Restrepo is definitely a great film. I recommend Going and Getting It. There’s also

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another film called Korengal which was also made

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for or produced from the documentary footage that Tim Harrington

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shot along with Sebastian Younger. And I would

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strongly recommend picking up this book, examining its themes

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and looking at it closely, which we’ll start doing

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right now. But before we jump into the,

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the themes that are in war, I want to talk a little

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bit about the author. So Sebastian younger was

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born January 17, 1962

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and though he had a near death experience recently, is still very much, very

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much alive. He is an American journalist,

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author and filmmaker who has reported in the field

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on dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and of course

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the experience of infantry combat. By the

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way, his other books which are listed in the Front of War, just want to

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point those out to you are the

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Perfect Storm, which was turned into a, which was turned into a movie,

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A Death in Belmont and Fire

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and again, he is part of that, that long line of

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reporters turned Authors that winds all the way

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back in our history to Ernest

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Hemingway really was probably the most most famous

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author turned reporter. Actually reporter turned author turned back

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to reporter. But this idea of being a

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writer and doing dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and reporting

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on the results of dirty, dangerous and demanding

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occupations and going directly into those experiences and

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embedding yourself directly into those experiences has a long

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journalistic and authorial history in the

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United States. And Sebastian Younger is just one more person

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inside of that legacy. Younger’s works,

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which makes him unique to our time, explore themes

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such as brotherhood, trauma and, and the relationship of the individual to

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society as told from the far reaches of human

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experience. Younger graduated from Concord

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Academy in 1980 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from

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Wesleyan University and cultural anthropology in 1984.

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As an accomplished long distance runner, he spent summer training on the

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Navajo Nation reservation and wrote his thesis on Navajo long

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distance running and its traditional pre Columbian roots. By the way, he

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does talk about his running background in the book War.

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He also references it in interviews that you

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hear about him later on. And he does actually say in the book, you

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know, the running and the ability to

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tolerate a lot of pain for a long distance

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helped him in the, in the Korengal Valley where,

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you know, he didn’t want to be a burden on the, on

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the troops. And at the end of the day, you know,

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you have to be able to keep up. And we’re only as

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strong in a group of soldiers. We’re only as strong

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as our weakest point. And if the journalist is the weakest point,

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then that’s where the enemy will strike. And so

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Younger fell back on that, that long distance

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running and was able to run with a pack, was able

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to commit to or not run, but hike with a

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pack and was able to hike 60 miles and I’m not, sorry, sorry,

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not 60 miles, was able to hike up the sides of mountains

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with a 60 pound pack as well as

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his cameraman, you know, bringing his cameraman’s gear along as

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well in order to film what was happening in the Korengal

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Valley and to keep up with those soldiers who were also, by the way, at

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the time of the writing of the articles in Vanity Fair that would

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eventually become the book War, the Time of the Writing.

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Most of Those guys were 20 years younger than him.

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So, you know, this is, this is not an easy,

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not an easy task. And I could tell

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you as a person who’s in my mid-40s, trying to keep up with folks who

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are 20 years younger than me and, and I Don’t have a background in long

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distance running is always a challenge.

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While much of Younger’s writing is subjective and participatory,

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he strives to maintain a neutral point of view and avoids contemporary

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political discussion, especially around frequent subjects

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that haunt his journalistic peers, like economic

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inequality, diversity and social justice,

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and of course, war.

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In 2021, when

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he was interviewed, he cited his quote, unquote favorite quote

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in an interview with the Guardian. And I love this quote. And it goes

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directly to the mindset of a man like Sebastian

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Younger, a reporter like Sebastian Younger, a writer like

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Sebastian Younger. And I quote,

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journalists don’t tell people what to think.

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They tell them what to think

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about. So when we look at

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the book War, and when we look at particularly the

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first book or the first part of War,

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which is entitled Fear,

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we open up and we start with that chapter and

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there’s a. An opening description of exactly

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what we are getting into in the. In the

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Korengal Valley. In the spring of

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2007 in Afghanistan,

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we. We meet a character named. A character, a

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soldier named o’. Byrne. And

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Younger begins to walk us through what it actually means to be a

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member of Battle Company. O’ Byrne grew up in

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rural Pennsylvania, and he played

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army for many years as a kid.

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Um, and you know, he got in trouble at school, he started

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fighting at home. When he became a teenager, um,

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you know, you know, O’

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Byrne’s father shot him twice with a.22 rifle.

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And of course, instead of going to jail,

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he went to reform school for assault rather than his father going to

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00:16:14,020 –> 00:16:16,540
prison for attempted murder. And that was when O’ Byrne was 16.

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Later on, O’ Byrne met a National Guard recruiter who talked him

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into signing up and

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00:16:25,510 –> 00:16:28,990
transferred him from the National Guard into the. Into the. Or he

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00:16:28,990 –> 00:16:32,550
transferred himself from the National Guard into the regular Army. O’ Byrne is a

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00:16:32,550 –> 00:16:35,750
linchpin character in

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this entire book. He becomes. You see him grow

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in leadership of the men of the.

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00:16:44,990 –> 00:16:48,630
Of the 173rd Airborne and of course, the men

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00:16:48,630 –> 00:16:51,550
of the 2nd Battalion.

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Then we get introduced to the Korengal Valley and the Coral Valley.

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I love this line. And we’ll revisit this idea later on in

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our. In our main. Our main episode that will focus on

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00:17:04,230 –> 00:17:07,630
this book with, with John Hill, AKA Small Mountain.

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But this idea, I love this idea that the Korengal Valley is,

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Is too remote to conquer, the too poor to intimidate, and too

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00:17:15,139 –> 00:17:18,979
autonomous to buy off. Everybody now knows about

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the history of the, the history of

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Afghanistan, right? And we’ll talk a little Bit about that later on in

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00:17:26,139 –> 00:17:29,939
the. In the next section here. But this part of

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Afghanistan is so remote that the Soviets didn’t even get

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to the mouth of the valley or didn’t make it past the mouth of the

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valley when they invaded in the 80s and the Taliban didn’t dare go in

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00:17:41,260 –> 00:17:45,100
there at all. Only the Americans were stupid enough to go, or

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brave enough, depending upon your perspective, to go into the

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Korengal Valley. Then we continue to meet the other

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00:17:52,500 –> 00:17:56,180
men of 2nd Platoon, including 2nd Platoon Sergeant, a career

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00:17:56,180 –> 00:17:59,780
soldier named Mark Patterson, who was 30, a full

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12 years older than the youngest man in 2nd

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00:18:03,420 –> 00:18:06,540
Platoon. And then we meet

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00:18:06,930 –> 00:18:10,770
Sebastian Younger and we talk about his arrival into the platoon and

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00:18:10,930 –> 00:18:14,610
how he was integrated into their group.

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00:18:15,810 –> 00:18:19,490
And then, of course, the fighting starts and the bullets start

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00:18:19,490 –> 00:18:23,330
flying, the patrols start exiting Firebase

290
00:18:23,330 –> 00:18:26,850
Phoenix and they begin engaging the

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00:18:26,850 –> 00:18:29,730
enemy. During the summer of

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00:18:29,890 –> 00:18:33,660
2007, by the way, a summer

293
00:18:33,660 –> 00:18:37,300
where it is 100 degrees every day and

294
00:18:37,300 –> 00:18:40,700
tarantulas invade the living quarters of the American

295
00:18:40,860 –> 00:18:44,700
soldiers and presumably the Taliban fighters as well.

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But the American soldiers, to get out of the heat.

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There’s also a time when they’re carrying so much gear and

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they are fighting so hard that the smell of

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00:18:57,860 –> 00:19:01,410
their sweat is the smell of ammonia, because

300
00:19:01,410 –> 00:19:05,010
they’re actually breaking down muscle rather

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00:19:05,490 –> 00:19:09,090
than just straight sweat.

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00:19:10,530 –> 00:19:13,250
This first part, this first book, Fear,

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00:19:14,050 –> 00:19:17,410
sets up what’s going to happen in books two

304
00:19:17,970 –> 00:19:21,170
and three, Killing and Love.

305
00:19:22,050 –> 00:19:25,810
And it gives you an idea of exactly

306
00:19:26,210 –> 00:19:29,900
what, what it is that you’re getting into when

307
00:19:29,900 –> 00:19:33,380
you go into war in

308
00:19:33,380 –> 00:19:37,060
Afghanistan. So what

309
00:19:37,060 –> 00:19:40,780
is it like, dying and

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00:19:40,780 –> 00:19:44,460
killing? Not for America or

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00:19:44,460 –> 00:19:47,020
for religion, or for

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00:19:47,900 –> 00:19:49,740
economics or class

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00:19:51,420 –> 00:19:54,060
or for land or for women.

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00:19:55,020 –> 00:19:58,460
What is it like dying for your friends as an American

315
00:19:59,500 –> 00:20:03,180
in a place dubbed the graveyard of

316
00:20:03,180 –> 00:20:06,460
empires? The British came through

317
00:20:06,460 –> 00:20:09,739
Afghanistan and couldn’t subdue those folks.

318
00:20:11,020 –> 00:20:14,620
The Soviets came through Afghanistan and couldn’t subdue

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00:20:14,700 –> 00:20:17,500
those folks. And in 2001,

320
00:20:18,620 –> 00:20:21,992
one, after the events of September

321
00:20:22,108 –> 00:20:25,830
11th, we decided, yes, to go into Afghanistan

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00:20:25,910 –> 00:20:29,710
first, yes, going to Iraq second. But let’s focus on

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00:20:29,710 –> 00:20:33,270
Afghanistan for right now. And we decided we were going

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00:20:33,270 –> 00:20:36,670
to disrupt, we were going to stop the

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00:20:36,670 –> 00:20:40,470
insurgents, we were going to subdue the

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00:20:40,470 –> 00:20:44,070
country. Of course, 20 years later, we would

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00:20:44,070 –> 00:20:47,910
exit in great power. Ignominity.

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00:20:47,990 –> 00:20:49,670
We’re not going to talk about that today.

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00:20:51,750 –> 00:20:55,470
And the people that we sent there were not the

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00:20:55,470 –> 00:20:59,310
same people that we sent to wars in the

331
00:20:59,310 –> 00:21:02,470
previous years of the 20th century.

332
00:21:02,870 –> 00:21:06,670
These weren’t young Gen Xers going to the Iraq war in

333
00:21:06,670 –> 00:21:09,750
the early 1990s

334
00:21:10,960 –> 00:21:14,640
or Somalia or Sarajevo. These

335
00:21:14,960 –> 00:21:17,840
weren’t soldiers

336
00:21:18,800 –> 00:21:22,560
in the Vietnam era. These weren’t

337
00:21:22,560 –> 00:21:26,240
baby boomers and older baby boomers

338
00:21:26,400 –> 00:21:30,080
and old, younger silent generation folks that we

339
00:21:30,080 –> 00:21:33,200
were sending to Vietnam. These weren’t

340
00:21:34,160 –> 00:21:37,800
younger silent generation folks, younger World War II generation

341
00:21:37,800 –> 00:21:41,410
folks that we were sending to Korea. And of course these

342
00:21:41,410 –> 00:21:45,050
weren’t Great Depression babies who were just grateful for three

343
00:21:45,050 –> 00:21:48,490
hots in a cot and would very happily go

344
00:21:49,050 –> 00:21:52,690
to Europe or island hop

345
00:21:52,690 –> 00:21:55,370
across the Pacific in World War II.

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00:21:57,050 –> 00:22:00,850
The war in Afghanistan that went

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00:22:00,850 –> 00:22:04,330
on from 2001 to 2021 was

348
00:22:04,330 –> 00:22:08,030
not Vietnam. It was a war not

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00:22:08,030 –> 00:22:11,590
of conscripted soldiers and low

350
00:22:11,670 –> 00:22:15,270
intelligence draftees forced by social

351
00:22:15,350 –> 00:22:18,070
or cultural norms to sign up.

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00:22:18,950 –> 00:22:22,790
This, this was not that, that

353
00:22:22,790 –> 00:22:26,390
was not these people. These men

354
00:22:28,710 –> 00:22:32,360
were not the same men that had

355
00:22:32,360 –> 00:22:35,680
signed up for wars, to go fight wars for

356
00:22:35,680 –> 00:22:38,800
America in other places in the past.

357
00:22:39,760 –> 00:22:43,440
Matter of fact, if you ask these men, they weren’t fighting the war for

358
00:22:43,440 –> 00:22:47,200
America at all. They were fighting the war for an entire

359
00:22:47,200 –> 00:22:51,000
myriad of reasons and America was very low on the

360
00:22:51,000 –> 00:22:54,840
list. This is a challenge

361
00:22:54,840 –> 00:22:58,320
of modern warfare because we have smaller and smaller troop

362
00:22:58,320 –> 00:23:02,000
groups being asked to do more and more dangerous work.

363
00:23:03,160 –> 00:23:06,880
It used to be that you can mass troops at the point, at

364
00:23:06,880 –> 00:23:09,160
an inflection point and get some result.

365
00:23:10,680 –> 00:23:14,320
That was one of the principles of World War I, is a follow

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00:23:14,320 –> 00:23:18,080
up principle from World War II and was still held to be a principle

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00:23:18,080 –> 00:23:21,640
in Vietnam. But over the course of time, what has

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00:23:21,640 –> 00:23:24,920
happening, what has happened at least in the US military

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00:23:25,480 –> 00:23:29,040
is that holding a position has become less

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00:23:29,040 –> 00:23:32,800
about a mass of people to an inflection point and is more

371
00:23:32,800 –> 00:23:36,640
now about the intelligent application of force, technological

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00:23:36,640 –> 00:23:40,000
force, cyber force in our time,

373
00:23:40,560 –> 00:23:44,239
and of course personnel force to any given

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00:23:44,240 –> 00:23:48,080
threat. But just like in any war,

375
00:23:48,080 –> 00:23:51,440
in any time, in any era, the young men performing

376
00:23:51,840 –> 00:23:55,600
these acts, holding this position, shooting people

377
00:23:55,600 –> 00:23:59,100
and breaking things, they aren’t doing it for political

378
00:23:59,180 –> 00:24:02,060
reasons or even for social reasons or cultural reasons.

379
00:24:02,780 –> 00:24:05,740
They’re doing it because

380
00:24:06,780 –> 00:24:09,980
it’s a job with their buddies.

381
00:24:11,740 –> 00:24:14,620
And I think we’re going to have to wrap our brains, I think we’ve already

382
00:24:14,700 –> 00:24:18,140
wrapped our brains around this. But the knock on effects

383
00:24:18,780 –> 00:24:21,580
of this shift, this change, this

384
00:24:22,220 –> 00:24:26,020
momentous move in how we actually conduct war

385
00:24:26,020 –> 00:24:29,720
and the psychology of the people who conduct it has not

386
00:24:29,720 –> 00:24:33,360
been fully appreciated by the non

387
00:24:33,840 –> 00:24:36,800
war making non war fighting

388
00:24:37,360 –> 00:24:37,760
public.

389
00:24:42,800 –> 00:24:45,800
So what are we to take as we wrap up or as we begin to

390
00:24:45,800 –> 00:24:49,560
turn the corner from our conversation around war? By

391
00:24:49,560 –> 00:24:53,240
Sebastian Younger? Well, a couple of

392
00:24:53,240 –> 00:24:56,850
things I think we can definitely take from

393
00:24:57,170 –> 00:25:00,890
this Book. The big one, of course, is

394
00:25:00,890 –> 00:25:04,250
that the more things change, the more they stay

395
00:25:04,250 –> 00:25:07,730
depressingly the same. The United

396
00:25:07,730 –> 00:25:11,010
states lost nearly 50 soldiers in the Korengal Valley,

397
00:25:11,730 –> 00:25:15,010
specifically at OP Restrepo.

398
00:25:15,570 –> 00:25:19,250
And the question when there is any loss of

399
00:25:19,250 –> 00:25:22,060
blood or treasure, but really blood

400
00:25:23,340 –> 00:25:26,460
from civilians who do not fight, the question is always

401
00:25:27,260 –> 00:25:30,380
for what? Exactly. What

402
00:25:30,380 –> 00:25:32,700
exactly was the strategic

403
00:25:34,220 –> 00:25:37,500
outcome that we were looking for that justified

404
00:25:38,140 –> 00:25:41,980
such a. From a civilian’s perspective, large

405
00:25:42,060 –> 00:25:45,900
tactical loss. This is the same question

406
00:25:46,300 –> 00:25:50,080
that was asked in the past about the sacrifices in the trenches of

407
00:25:50,080 –> 00:25:53,720
World War I, the battlefields of World War II,

408
00:25:54,440 –> 00:25:58,160
the valleys and mountains of Korea and the jungles of

409
00:25:58,160 –> 00:26:01,320
Vietnam and the deserts of Iraq. Both times.

410
00:26:02,280 –> 00:26:05,560
And it is a question that goes to the vicious idea

411
00:26:05,960 –> 00:26:09,320
or maybe the reality of trade

412
00:26:09,320 –> 00:26:13,160
offs. You can never get something

413
00:26:13,640 –> 00:26:17,040
for nothing. Nothing. And Thomas Sowell

414
00:26:17,360 –> 00:26:21,080
once infamously said, or inciviously stated in his book

415
00:26:21,080 –> 00:26:24,320
a conflict of Visions, Ideological Origins of Political

416
00:26:24,320 –> 00:26:27,840
Struggles, and I quote, there are no solutions.

417
00:26:28,480 –> 00:26:30,799
There are only trade offs.

418
00:26:32,240 –> 00:26:35,840
By the way, the trade offs involved in war always

419
00:26:35,840 –> 00:26:39,440
involve counting the costs, as was pointed out

420
00:26:39,440 –> 00:26:42,738
by Jesus himself in Luke 14:28

421
00:26:42,982 –> 00:26:46,360
32. You can go back and read that if you’re

422
00:26:46,360 –> 00:26:50,120
curious. There is a cost to things, whether it is

423
00:26:50,120 –> 00:26:53,920
a material cost, an emotional cost or a

424
00:26:53,920 –> 00:26:57,440
psychological cost. And we ask these young men,

425
00:26:57,920 –> 00:27:01,200
and this is one of the major points that Sebastian Younger makes in his book,

426
00:27:01,200 –> 00:27:04,480
particularly in the last section on

427
00:27:04,960 –> 00:27:08,780
love, we ask these young men to make a

428
00:27:08,780 –> 00:27:12,580
sacrifice, to lay down not only their physical lives, but lay

429
00:27:12,580 –> 00:27:16,300
down their psychological lives, their emotional lives, and dare I say, even

430
00:27:16,300 –> 00:27:19,940
their spiritual lives in the service of achieving

431
00:27:21,060 –> 00:27:24,860
a tactical moment inside of

432
00:27:24,860 –> 00:27:27,140
a larger strategic plan.

433
00:27:29,060 –> 00:27:32,900
Civilian control of the military is one of the hallmarks of Western

434
00:27:32,940 –> 00:27:36,610
civilization. Civilization and civilizations that come out

435
00:27:36,610 –> 00:27:40,330
of and are influenced by the Western way

436
00:27:40,330 –> 00:27:43,890
of war making and civilization,

437
00:27:44,290 –> 00:27:47,610
sorry, civilization. Civilian control of the

438
00:27:47,610 –> 00:27:51,090
military is ensured through political

439
00:27:51,170 –> 00:27:54,210
elections and a formalized or.

440
00:27:55,010 –> 00:27:57,890
Or formalized constitutional processes.

441
00:27:58,860 –> 00:28:02,580
But this doesn’t mean that the politicians that we elect, that we vote

442
00:28:02,580 –> 00:28:06,220
for are any good or any better

443
00:28:06,220 –> 00:28:09,980
at explaining the strategies of warfare or the outcomes of battles to the

444
00:28:09,980 –> 00:28:12,860
people who voted for them than the generals are.

445
00:28:14,300 –> 00:28:18,140
There’s a great line in that anti war pro war

446
00:28:18,140 –> 00:28:21,180
film directed by Stanley Kubrick, Dr.

447
00:28:21,180 –> 00:28:24,860
Strangelove, or how I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

448
00:28:25,530 –> 00:28:28,730
from Sterling Hayden, who plays a general

449
00:28:29,850 –> 00:28:33,130
in in a bunker in the

450
00:28:33,130 –> 00:28:36,570
1950s who begins or kicks off

451
00:28:36,570 –> 00:28:40,290
nuclear Armageddon. He says, and I quote, the

452
00:28:40,290 –> 00:28:44,050
phrasing used to be war was too important to be left to the

453
00:28:44,050 –> 00:28:47,770
generals. These days, I say war is

454
00:28:47,770 –> 00:28:50,330
too important to be left to the politicians.

455
00:28:51,460 –> 00:28:54,900
Close quote the

456
00:28:54,900 –> 00:28:58,540
soldiers who were tasked with capturing and holding spots in the Corner

457
00:28:58,540 –> 00:29:01,940
Valley in 2007 and 2008

458
00:29:02,100 –> 00:29:05,620
and before and were doing so against the Taliban

459
00:29:06,100 –> 00:29:09,460
were men who didn’t know the strategy

460
00:29:09,700 –> 00:29:13,460
either. They just knew that their country

461
00:29:13,460 –> 00:29:16,180
had sent them there and now

462
00:29:17,080 –> 00:29:20,480
their friends were getting shot there and all

463
00:29:20,480 –> 00:29:24,240
bets were off. Remember

464
00:29:24,240 –> 00:29:26,840
I said, the more things change,

465
00:29:27,880 –> 00:29:31,000
the more they remain depressingly

466
00:29:31,880 –> 00:29:35,640
the same. I was recently

467
00:29:35,960 –> 00:29:39,480
reminded of an idea that

468
00:29:39,640 –> 00:29:43,000
was buried in the book Starship Troopers

469
00:29:43,590 –> 00:29:47,430
by the great Robert Heinlein, whose book A Stranger in a

470
00:29:47,430 –> 00:29:50,870
Strange Land we covered on the podcast this season.

471
00:29:51,270 –> 00:29:55,030
You should go back and listen to that episode. The idea in

472
00:29:55,030 –> 00:29:58,470
Starship Troopers that Heinlein was rebelling against

473
00:29:58,470 –> 00:30:02,310
himself, a veteran of the United States

474
00:30:02,470 –> 00:30:06,190
military, the idea that he was pushing back

475
00:30:06,190 –> 00:30:09,760
against was this one. And it comes

476
00:30:10,080 –> 00:30:13,400
in a quip that typically comes from well meaning or

477
00:30:13,400 –> 00:30:17,240
emanates from well meaning civilians who really don’t

478
00:30:17,240 –> 00:30:20,080
know anything about war at all.

479
00:30:21,120 –> 00:30:24,599
The quip is violence is never the

480
00:30:24,599 –> 00:30:25,120
answer.

481
00:30:27,840 –> 00:30:31,520
Adults, particularly adults employed in the K12

482
00:30:31,520 –> 00:30:35,240
education system in America, often deliver this bromide to

483
00:30:35,240 –> 00:30:38,830
children. The sentiment behind such an aphorism is

484
00:30:38,830 –> 00:30:42,550
admirable, and I think Heinlein would agree with me on this.

485
00:30:42,790 –> 00:30:46,630
But just because it is admirable, that doesn’t make it correct or

486
00:30:46,630 –> 00:30:48,390
particularly useful.

487
00:30:50,150 –> 00:30:53,990
Sometimes, and I’m saying this as a person who is

488
00:30:54,470 –> 00:30:57,110
and has worked in the mediation and peacemaking space,

489
00:30:57,830 –> 00:31:01,350
sometimes violence is the answer. It just

490
00:31:01,350 –> 00:31:03,430
depends upon what the question is.

491
00:31:05,440 –> 00:31:08,480
And we in the United States, we

492
00:31:09,040 –> 00:31:12,800
are at a weird inflection point where the

493
00:31:12,800 –> 00:31:16,560
things that happened 20 years ago and the people who did those

494
00:31:16,560 –> 00:31:19,920
things and made those decisions are increasingly going to be

495
00:31:20,160 –> 00:31:23,200
framed and perceived as old or

496
00:31:23,680 –> 00:31:27,240
irrelevant. And the men who were

497
00:31:27,240 –> 00:31:30,000
boys 20 years ago in the Korengal Valley

498
00:31:31,060 –> 00:31:34,740
are going to be framed this way as well.

499
00:31:36,100 –> 00:31:39,620
By the way, at the time of this recording, the news

500
00:31:39,780 –> 00:31:43,380
broke that the former Vice President of the United

501
00:31:43,460 –> 00:31:46,980
States, who was part of the decision making

502
00:31:46,980 –> 00:31:50,580
matrix that the civilian population voted

503
00:31:50,580 –> 00:31:54,300
for that, then sent those young men to the

504
00:31:54,300 –> 00:31:58,030
Korengal Valley. A gentleman named Dick Cheney

505
00:31:58,750 –> 00:32:02,470
has passed away. He was 84

506
00:32:02,470 –> 00:32:05,950
years old, died, I suspect,

507
00:32:06,350 –> 00:32:07,950
peacefully in his bed.

508
00:32:09,870 –> 00:32:13,390
Hmm. War

509
00:32:14,510 –> 00:32:17,870
in general is still

510
00:32:18,190 –> 00:32:21,870
and remains the most serious act we as humans engage

511
00:32:21,870 –> 00:32:25,410
in against other humans. And I

512
00:32:25,490 –> 00:32:28,930
hope for the life of all of us that we are

513
00:32:28,930 –> 00:32:32,490
exiting a time, an era over the last

514
00:32:32,490 –> 00:32:35,170
20 years of deeply held

515
00:32:35,250 –> 00:32:36,530
unseriousness,

516
00:32:38,450 –> 00:32:41,570
unserious politicians unserious

517
00:32:41,810 –> 00:32:45,570
generals, unserious executive

518
00:32:45,810 –> 00:32:49,250
leadership. I pray we are exiting a time of

519
00:32:49,680 –> 00:32:53,440
unserious media and unserious

520
00:32:53,680 –> 00:32:57,400
entertainment. I pray that we are exiting a

521
00:32:57,400 –> 00:33:01,080
time of unserious culture, and that we are

522
00:33:01,080 –> 00:33:04,800
entering a time where, having been led

523
00:33:05,519 –> 00:33:09,360
and been commanded and been demanded to do things by

524
00:33:09,360 –> 00:33:12,960
unserious people, the people who had to do those

525
00:33:12,960 –> 00:33:16,810
things now become the mature, serious ones,

526
00:33:17,610 –> 00:33:20,810
and now speak with a mature and serious voice.

527
00:33:22,650 –> 00:33:26,490
And I hope that we are in the

528
00:33:26,490 –> 00:33:29,930
last gas of being led by those who merely perform

529
00:33:30,810 –> 00:33:34,090
seriousness without a deep understanding of

530
00:33:34,090 –> 00:33:37,490
competency and skill, because the

531
00:33:37,490 –> 00:33:40,730
competency and skill that is required in order to

532
00:33:42,490 –> 00:33:46,050
effectively dish out, for lack of a better

533
00:33:46,050 –> 00:33:49,850
term, the sacrifices that are required

534
00:33:49,850 –> 00:33:53,530
to make war is also a competency or

535
00:33:53,530 –> 00:33:57,249
walks alongside competencies and skills that can explain

536
00:33:57,249 –> 00:34:00,810
in a serious fashion to a

537
00:34:00,810 –> 00:34:04,370
serious public that lies below a deeply

538
00:34:04,370 –> 00:34:08,110
unserious elite the consequences of

539
00:34:08,900 –> 00:34:12,180
of such actions.

540
00:34:13,140 –> 00:34:16,980
And, well, that’s

541
00:34:16,980 –> 00:34:17,700
it for me.