A couple of weekends ago a friend and I were driving through an Atlanta neighborhood and he pointed out a Civil War monument I had never seen before. I told him about how my grandmother used to show me this photograph of an ancestor of mine who fought for the Confederate States of America. I wish I paid more attention to her than I had for I can't remember his name. I don't know anything of his accomplishments on or off the battlefield. Likewise, I don't know much about the Patterson brothers who fought in the American Revolution that led my family to Georgia. But despite my ignorance of their lives I still felt that perhaps I might join some organization like the Sons of the Confederacy or Sons of the American revolution to honor their memories.
This was completely foreign to my friend. Why, he implored, would a person want to link himself to something of such legendary error as defending the evil institution of slavery? It's clear that I am opposed to slavery and, ultimately, I support the idea of a unified United States of America. So why would I want to honor those who fought to continue one of the greatest moral injustices that humans can, and still, engage in?
At first, I couldn't really answer him. He's right in that whatever positive reasons the Confederacy may have had for secession are vastly out weighed by the burden of slavery. But somehow, I still cannot hate the soldiers of the Confederacy just as I cannot hate the soldiers of the Union. Slavery is deplorable but I also think the total war tactics employed by the Union, and particularly those of Gen. Sherman, are also immoral. The Union will be forever known as the force that freed the slaves in America but also as the force that torched and destroyed the South in order to do it.
My father served in the Vietnam War. He was always a quiet man so I was never sure if his overall silence about the war was because of his general disposition or because he intentionally kept us in the dark about his time there. Years later after I graduated college I found out that my father was ill. He had been diagnosed with diabetes as an adult and then later with Hepatitis C. As it turns out my father contracted the disease during his time in the war. I don't know where he got the disease, Malaysia or Vietnam, but I do know that he was infected while using drugs that he never used before or after his military service. Although I do not know the details I do know that this was a common event for men who were asked to do things and see things which caused them great mental distress and they did what they could to anesthetize themselves.
The Vietnam War was not a just war nor was my father's involvement in it. He committed no crimes and did not volunteer to engage in war. The UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT decided that he and many other men were not free moral agents but property of the state. Their liberty was not a consideration as they were forced into virtual slavery, given guns, and then sent to fight for causes that many knew nothing about and many opposed. While my father did not die in war and it was his own decisions that led to his early death I will always consider my father a combatant who died because of war.
I loved my father dearly. I honored and respected my father. I even loved my father's service in the military. He did not see things in the extreme way I did. Rather, he saw himself as a man who simply answered the call that the country he loved so dearly made. He was a hero to me as a father. And even though he fought in a war we now consider to be morally questionable he was also a hero to our country.
Soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines, guardsmen. They are heroes. Ask any friend that's been with me to see it and they can confirm that if I'm in line at a grocery store, filling my gas tank, or getting a sandwich that I will stop what I'm doing to say 'thank you' to any man or woman in uniform. They make a living defending freedom and that's just about the coolest thing ever.
But sometimes these men and women are asked to do things I think is wrong. Sometimes these heroes are sent to places that I think the United States should avoid. But duty and honor are their callings, their job descriptions. They are the fighting men and women of the greatest military on the planet and are Grade-A ass kickers and I'm grateful that they are here.
That's how I feel about the Confederates. It's also I how I feel about the Union soldiers. Most southerners did not own a slave. Far fewer owned many slaves. But many men died on their behalf. Consider this sentence: wealthy, politically connected southern aristocrats convinced poorer, less sophisticated men to fight their battles for them. I could have easily replaced "southern" with "northern" and the sentence would be true.
My dad did not give a shit one way or the other about the Viet Cong. He may have known Communism was evil but he may not have known why. Regardless my dad, Charles Barrett Porterfield, had no business being entangled in the struggle to prevent it's spread to Asia. But politicians forced my father to do what millions of slain heroes have done: fight rich people's battles for them.
I've got nothing against wealth or the wealthy. I do have a problem with some wealthy people conspiring with people of great political power to send people like my father out to fight and possibly die. Most combatants in history have been men. Whether they were a Mongol, a Zulu, a Greek, an American, a Nazi, an Apache they were all individual, human beings that could have been someones father or brother or husband or lover and were absolutely someones son. Killed for a cause they may or not have believed I do not know if I have the moral fortitude to decide whether any or all died in vain. I do wish that whatever the issue at hand was that it had not come to war.
Maybe the Civil War was the only way to end slavery. Perhaps World War II limited the combine genocides of the Nazis and Soviets to 70 million when it could have been hundreds of millions. My cousin, a captain in the awesome US Navy, is involved in military intelligence and could probably tell me things that would make me accept a Nobel Peace Prize one week and then send tens of thousands of sons to a front line the next. But, goddammit, I have to believe there is another way. I argue that it's through free and fair trade that international conflict is reduced but if a politician espouses anything other than anti-war rhetoric then they will never have my vote.
My dad did not die during a war but war caused my dad to die. On this Memorial Day I'm going to remember him specifically and every warrior collectively who carried a gun or lifted a sword or drew a bow or flew a plane or sailed a warship and fought with (mostly) his all to fight for his country. May your sweat and blood be the foundation with which we forge a world in which our differences lead to competition and cooperation rather than violence and force.
This was completely foreign to my friend. Why, he implored, would a person want to link himself to something of such legendary error as defending the evil institution of slavery? It's clear that I am opposed to slavery and, ultimately, I support the idea of a unified United States of America. So why would I want to honor those who fought to continue one of the greatest moral injustices that humans can, and still, engage in?
At first, I couldn't really answer him. He's right in that whatever positive reasons the Confederacy may have had for secession are vastly out weighed by the burden of slavery. But somehow, I still cannot hate the soldiers of the Confederacy just as I cannot hate the soldiers of the Union. Slavery is deplorable but I also think the total war tactics employed by the Union, and particularly those of Gen. Sherman, are also immoral. The Union will be forever known as the force that freed the slaves in America but also as the force that torched and destroyed the South in order to do it.
My father served in the Vietnam War. He was always a quiet man so I was never sure if his overall silence about the war was because of his general disposition or because he intentionally kept us in the dark about his time there. Years later after I graduated college I found out that my father was ill. He had been diagnosed with diabetes as an adult and then later with Hepatitis C. As it turns out my father contracted the disease during his time in the war. I don't know where he got the disease, Malaysia or Vietnam, but I do know that he was infected while using drugs that he never used before or after his military service. Although I do not know the details I do know that this was a common event for men who were asked to do things and see things which caused them great mental distress and they did what they could to anesthetize themselves.
The Vietnam War was not a just war nor was my father's involvement in it. He committed no crimes and did not volunteer to engage in war. The UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT decided that he and many other men were not free moral agents but property of the state. Their liberty was not a consideration as they were forced into virtual slavery, given guns, and then sent to fight for causes that many knew nothing about and many opposed. While my father did not die in war and it was his own decisions that led to his early death I will always consider my father a combatant who died because of war.
I loved my father dearly. I honored and respected my father. I even loved my father's service in the military. He did not see things in the extreme way I did. Rather, he saw himself as a man who simply answered the call that the country he loved so dearly made. He was a hero to me as a father. And even though he fought in a war we now consider to be morally questionable he was also a hero to our country.
Soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines, guardsmen. They are heroes. Ask any friend that's been with me to see it and they can confirm that if I'm in line at a grocery store, filling my gas tank, or getting a sandwich that I will stop what I'm doing to say 'thank you' to any man or woman in uniform. They make a living defending freedom and that's just about the coolest thing ever.
But sometimes these men and women are asked to do things I think is wrong. Sometimes these heroes are sent to places that I think the United States should avoid. But duty and honor are their callings, their job descriptions. They are the fighting men and women of the greatest military on the planet and are Grade-A ass kickers and I'm grateful that they are here.
That's how I feel about the Confederates. It's also I how I feel about the Union soldiers. Most southerners did not own a slave. Far fewer owned many slaves. But many men died on their behalf. Consider this sentence: wealthy, politically connected southern aristocrats convinced poorer, less sophisticated men to fight their battles for them. I could have easily replaced "southern" with "northern" and the sentence would be true.
My dad did not give a shit one way or the other about the Viet Cong. He may have known Communism was evil but he may not have known why. Regardless my dad, Charles Barrett Porterfield, had no business being entangled in the struggle to prevent it's spread to Asia. But politicians forced my father to do what millions of slain heroes have done: fight rich people's battles for them.
I've got nothing against wealth or the wealthy. I do have a problem with some wealthy people conspiring with people of great political power to send people like my father out to fight and possibly die. Most combatants in history have been men. Whether they were a Mongol, a Zulu, a Greek, an American, a Nazi, an Apache they were all individual, human beings that could have been someones father or brother or husband or lover and were absolutely someones son. Killed for a cause they may or not have believed I do not know if I have the moral fortitude to decide whether any or all died in vain. I do wish that whatever the issue at hand was that it had not come to war.
Maybe the Civil War was the only way to end slavery. Perhaps World War II limited the combine genocides of the Nazis and Soviets to 70 million when it could have been hundreds of millions. My cousin, a captain in the awesome US Navy, is involved in military intelligence and could probably tell me things that would make me accept a Nobel Peace Prize one week and then send tens of thousands of sons to a front line the next. But, goddammit, I have to believe there is another way. I argue that it's through free and fair trade that international conflict is reduced but if a politician espouses anything other than anti-war rhetoric then they will never have my vote.
My dad did not die during a war but war caused my dad to die. On this Memorial Day I'm going to remember him specifically and every warrior collectively who carried a gun or lifted a sword or drew a bow or flew a plane or sailed a warship and fought with (mostly) his all to fight for his country. May your sweat and blood be the foundation with which we forge a world in which our differences lead to competition and cooperation rather than violence and force.
