endless war

Count on one thing: armed conflict lasts for decades after battles end and its effects ripple thousands of miles beyond actual battlefields. This has been true of America’s post-9/11 forever wars that, in some minimalist fashion, continue in all too many countries around the world. Yet those wars, which we ignited in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, are hardly the first to offer such lessons. Prior wars left us plenty to learn from that could have led this country to respond differently after that September day when terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Instead, we ignored history and, as a result, among so many other horrific things, left our weaponry — explosives, small arms, you name it — in war zones to kill and maim yet more people there for generations to come.

Case in point: We Americans tend to disregard the possibility (however modest) that weapons of war could even destroy our own lives here at home, despite how many of us own destructive weaponry. A few years ago, my military spouse and I were looking for a house for our family to settle in after over a decade of moving from military post to military post. We very nearly bought an old farmhouse owned by a combat veteran who mentioned his deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. We felt uncertain about the structure of his house, so we arranged to return with our children to take another look after he had moved out. The moment we entered the garage with our two toddlers in tow, we noticed a semi-automatic rifle leaning against the wall, its barrel pointing up. Had we not grabbed our son by the hand, he might have run over to touch it and, had it been loaded, the unthinkable might have occurred. Anyone who has raised young children knows that a single item in an empty room, especially one as storied as a gun (in today’s age of constant school shootings and lockdowns) could be a temptation too great to resist.