Many of you are familiar with Andrew J. Bacevich, the international relations prof at BU. Bacevich is a retired Army Colonel, a military policy intellectual and, by most standards of place and time, a conservative. But he’s also become a powerful critic of what in his most recent book he calls ‘the new American militarism’, a book I strongly recommend. And he’s been a consistent and powerful opponent of the Iraq war from start to finish — or whatever point we’re at now.
This afternoon a friend who works in the military budgeting world forwarded me an email from the DOD. It began …
NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense
No. 582-07 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2007
Media Contact: (703) 697-5131/697-5132
Public/Industry(703) 428-0711DoD Identifies Army Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
1st Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, 27, of Walpole, Mass., died May 13 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat patrol operations in Salah Ad Din Province, Iraq.He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
I don’t think I knew whether Bacevich had a son. But he comes from that class of career military where professional military service is often an intergenerational endeavor. Age sounds about right. And I just had a hard time seeing how many Andrew J. Baceviches there would be in Massachusetts.
But no more wondering. It’s his son. I can only imagine the special agony reserved for a professional military man to lose a child in a war he has now spent years arguing was a mistake.
You remember that famous passage in Henry V: Act IV, scene one where Bates tells the disguised King Henry that if the King’s “cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.”
There’s a shameless game of moral chicken that war supporters play in which they dare opponents to say the war is a mistake because, they claim, saying so would then dishonor all the men and women who’ve already died in its cause. So to spare the dead that ignominy, kill many more of our children. All to avoid swallowing that bitter pill. But I think there’s a converse to Bates’ argument that I agree with, though I disagree with his claim about the moral reckoning. And that is that the service and the sacrifice wash the death clean of the folly of the leaders who ordered them into the battle.
And of course this drama gets played out … what, two, three times a day? Often more. Each time no less shattering for the family involved.
Steve Clemons has more on Bacevich Sr.
