Memorial Day ’08
Tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day, honoring those young Americans who have given their lives in all our wars. Each year we do this, but in some of our wars — like the one in Iraq — we seem to be sadly conflicted about whether we’re honoring our service members, but condemning the war they’re in and the administration we often believe has involved them in it for reasons that are sadly insufficient. Or that’s the way many of us see them.
Can we convincingly say, as many U.S. politicians and citizens have been in the case of Iraq, that we support the troops but condemn the war? Well, we not only can, but we’ve done that in most of our wars, starting with the American Revolution of 1775-1783.
Historians estimate that between 30 percent and 40 percent of all the American colonists opposed the war for independence from Britain. They were called “Tories.” Some fought in special “Loyalist” units alongside the British Army. Others fled to Canada to escape being intimidated into silence about the war by the patriots.
Roughly 25 years later, the Northern states tended to oppose the War of 1812. They did considerable trading with Britain, and didn’t want it disrupted. The governor of Massachusetts refused to call out the militia of his state to aid in the war effort. Later, the New England states considered secession from the Union, almost 50 years before their counterparts from the South actually took such a step.
As the war dragged on, popular support for it plummeted, and obtaining volunteers for the army became increasing difficult. Sound familiar?
While the Federalist party opposed the war, the Democratic-Republicans — the party Thomas Jefferson had founded — viewed any opposition to the war as treasonous.
Flash forward to the late 1840s, when Southern Democrats were instrumental in involving the U.S. in a war with Mexico under the James K. Polk administration. On the other hand, most members of the other major party of those days, the Whigs, opposed the war as being fought in the interests of adding more slave states — which was exactly what the Democrats intended.
One of those Whigs, a tall, skinny congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, was one of the leading opponents of the war.
The Civil War, or War Between the States, not only involved one half of the country fighting the other, but also saw Northerners from the Midwest, mostly Democrats, who opposed the war and were called “Copperheads.” In the mountains of east Tennessee and western North Carolina, thousands of anti-slavery mountaineers volunteered and fought for the Union Army.
When we got into the brief, totally successful Spanish-American War in 1898, Americans were surprisingly united in support of it. I guess we had decided it was time to acquire us an empire. President William McKinley, a Republican, opposed the idea of such a war up to the time when events forced him to ask Congress for a declaration of hostilities with Spain.
Woodrow Wilson’s declaration of war against Germany in 1917 was far from universally popular with Americans. Noted people who opposed it publicly included Eugene V. Debs, socialist leader from Terre Haute; fellow socialist Emma Goldman; and Chicago social worker Jane Addams. The war was especially unpopular in parts of the Midwest with heavily German-American populations. But supporters of the war tried to intimidate those who didn’t agree with them, to the point of wrecking German-owned shops and scaring German-Americans into anglicizing their family names.
World War II was, of course, heavily supported by most Americans because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the horror that news about Hitler’s Nazi regime was inspiring in this country.
Korea came too soon after World War II, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of Americans and probably ensuring that President Harry Truman did not even try for a second elected term.
Then came Vietnam — probably the most unpopular war we have ever fought, partly because it was one of our longest wars. Sadly, in this war many serice members who fought in it were treated shabbily on their return home. That hasn’t happened very often in our wars.
The bad feelings left by Vietnam were finally resolved in the highly popular Desert Storm war of 1990-91 against Iraq. Unfortunately, the second time we went into Iraq we found more problems than we could ever imagine.
So, that brings us right up to date. The soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, coast guardmen — they don’t start our wars. They don’t preach against a war, or in favor of it. Whatever they may think about the war they’re in, they are the ones who have to do the fighting and dying. Tomorrow we honor those ones who didn’t make it back. You didn’t have to like the war, to say, “Thanks for your sacrifice” to those who fought it.
Old Corporal <corporalko@yahoo.com>
Memorial Day, – Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 20:09:32 (EDT)
