“I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, ‘Mother, what was war?’”
- Eve Merriam
One might think that, despite military propaganda, we would take a break from the “support the troops” tripe - at least on Mother’s Day - a day to remember the one who brought us into this world.
If militarists are going to persist in claiming that soldiers need support, we should be equally adamant in reminding them of the mothers (and fathers) that children are supposed to honor. How about “Honor Mom. Don’t grow up to be a soldier”?
Most parents, bringing children into this world, love and nurture them in the hope that they will become happy, productive adults. We teach them not to bully or terrorize and to have empathy for others. “It’s not nice to hit others” is the child’s version of “Though shall not kill”.
And yet, preachers, rabbis and imans fall silent when it comes to their wards joining the world’s largest military, going overseas and taking the lives of innocent families - so long as it’s done for “America”. What idolatry.
I recently watched the dialogue between a mother and her soldier son who was fortunate to return from Iraq (mostly) intact. She was clearly against the war in Iraq while he said that he had killed to “keep the bad at bay”. Bull.
I’ve been to Iraq on multiple occasions and most significant “bad” is that of our own creation - the ongoing occupation. The killing of American soldiers on a daily basis wouldn’t occur if they were there in peace and not subjecting Iraqi citizens to arbitrary searches, imprisonment, forced closures of schools and hospitals, restricted movement within their communities and airs attacks on their cities. This is terrorism, not “freedom”.
One of the most significant events in human civilization occurred thousands of years ago when the practice of infant sacrifice was abolished. Societies realized that neither the weather nor combat “victory” could be ensured by the killing of the young - it was all just superstition. And yet, we read in the paper and even our national leaders speak of the “sacrifice” of young men and women for their country. More idolatrous bull.
If something as important as defending the nation results in war, then why aren’t the parents the first ones in line. I know that I would never ask a child to die for me, but I would give my last breath for them if the need arose. What good parent wouldn’t?
Julia War Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, was a patriot and a mother. She was also against slavery and the originator of the original Mother’s Day in 1870.
“Arise then…women of this day!” she wrote. “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
And yet, more than a century after Mother’s Day began, the United States has become a country where the “sword of murder” is an instrument of national policy.
Next week, members of the House of Representatives are expected to vote to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through 2009. They plan to become accomplices in a continued occupation that can only lead to disaster - and the loss of life of more children. This can only be called an abomination and those who vote for it complicit in war crimes.
At the same time, millions of Americans will be honoring their mother by continuing to work for peace, struggling to end war and resisting the siren call of military recruiters. No matter what other families do, mine will be on this side. I will give my mother, the only gift she has ever wanted and the only thing I wish from my own sons.
It is the continued hope that one day the poor and humble will be fed and the rich and powerful brought learn wisdom, that all can live in peace and with justice - and that every day will become a “Mother’s Day”.
Charlie Jackson is the founder of Texans for Peace and the father of two young men. He has made three humanitarian trips to Iraq.
It shows you how far our society has adopted militarism as part of our lives. We now have mothers who are veterans. I hope that they have learned the right things and will now be a voice to stop war. Moms certainly don’t need to stay in the kitchen, but at the same time they should know better than to agree to go off to war. We need moms to nurture society, not destroy it.
Hoa binh
its as simple as “what if they gave a war and nobody came.” the universal soldier is the problem; mothers, don’t let your children grow up to be soldiers!
There is a vein of aggression that runs through some, not all, males. And maybe even some females. That alone would not be enough to start wars. But place those individuals in a society like ours, which glorifies war, and combat, and which is so fervently nationalistic that it teaches that AMERICA is the best country on earth and SUPERIOR to everyone else and you have the raw material for making soldiers. Aggression can be enhanced through training. Nationalism can be heightened through brainwashing, which is all basic training amounts to. Then the black and white thinking of THEM vs. US is instilled through drills and lectures, and “them” is made out to be lesser, inferior, evil, worthy of destruction. It takes a hell of a lot of work to turn men and women into killers-on-command, and even after all their training some of them just can’t do it once they’re on the battlefield. This is what gives me some hope for our species. We send our kids to Iraq and say kill — surely they must think: why? Why must I shoot that woman? That man and his son? What have they ever done to me? Why am I in this god-forsaken desert instead of at home with my spouse and my children, my lover, my Mom and Dad? And then there’s the true tragedy of those who shoot and in so doing so twist their hearts and souls that they may never become whole human beings again.
God damn to eternal hell every man and woman in this administration and in this country that planned, voted for, and supported and supports these wars of aggression. And protect all the poor victims of the violence.
ACC: I agree with your post up to the “God damn” those who supported the war. The law of karma holds all to account. Just as our own judicial systems seeks to simulate the degree of culpability by using a number of mitigating factors, the poorly educated person who’s been more or less brainwashed by TV, his church, right wing family would incur less karma then someone in media who LED the cheerleading FOR this war based on FIXED evidence and the dark profit motives of a select few. As my friend Leslie says, “Their karma will get them.” It’s a more just version of asking “God” to “damn.” Or as America’s “Sleeping Prophet,” Edgar Cayce put it… “Entity is meeting self.”
Fantastic article, Mr. Jackson! THIS is the kind of voice we need to permeate the corporate media. Send this link to everyone you know by tomorrow.
You’ve got a ways to go if you want to eliminate the connection between Moms and the military, despite the good efforts of Cindy Sheehan. I’ll never forget when I went into the Army in December of 1965. Some weird sense of leniency allowed us to go home for Christmas in the middle of basic training. Mom and Dad of course wanted to take my picture in uniform, and I’ll never forget the look on her face, tearing up in pride and admiration. Of course, they are both World War II generation, but the same sentimentalizing exists just as strongly today. Moms have been brainwashed to believe that the soldiers are nice young boys putting their lives at risk for the common good.
This has evidently been the case all along. I’m not historian, but I’ve read a fair amount and watched a lot of historical documentaries on TV, and the amount of human energy and ingenuity that has been put in the service of war is astonishing and discouraging. That couldn’t have happened if Moms hadn’t thought it was sweet and wonderful to have soldiers as sons.
I wish all the Moms of the world would teach their offspring that war is unhealthy for children and other living beings. But there is still an awful lot of destructive, mostly pointless military activity going on here on planet earth. It continues to be the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.
So happy Mothers Day. I hope your children stop blasting bullets and hurling explosive devices at each other so you won’t have to grieve about their being killed in the line of duty.
What amazes me is that even when there is a tragedy of natural causes, such as in Burma, the local Junta’s military still resists humanitarian efforts from outside for fear of being taken over. What is preventing the u.s. from sending in the troops and liberating these Burmese from their evil captors? Oh, no oil? WMD? Shame on U.S.
peace,
st john
“Mom and Dad of course wanted to take my picture in uniform, and I’ll never forget the look on her face, tearing up in pride and admiration.”–Paranoid Pessimist.
Good point, Paranoid. We pretend not to understand how Muslim parents might be proud of their children who become suicide bombers, but it’s exactly analogous to what goes on here.
Good article and comments from ACC, Paranoid and the all the others. The points seem self-evident, but not everyone feels that way obviously. We should keep saying these things to those we know who are still carried away by the pageantry, adventure and romance of soldiering.
There is good research by Solomon Asch on conformity. It illustrates that when several people plainly lie about what they see (some simple thing like which of two lines is longer), others who are not in on the trick will lose faith in their own perceptions and go along with the lie. But if even one person reports what they are actually seeing, that can have a great impact, encouraging others to express their doubts and report what they are actually seeing.