Editorial: Many are Called, Many Go

By LC Van Savage

We’ve heard the word “courage” a lot lately, mostly as quoted by Mr. Dan Rather on his clouded retirement. I love the word and wish I had a lot of the stuff infused into me, but alas, I don’t. My courage threshold embarrassingly low, well beneath the wimp level.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that word lately, especially while watching the thrilling televised homecomings of the military people as they arrive in airports and other places. Who, even the most anti-war person alive, cannot help but be moved to tears at the sounds of the cheers and the scenes of those people racing into each others’ arms on the day they finally, finally get home to their country and the people who love them and who had been so anxiously waiting for them? Many of us have never been able to close the wounds we inflicted on the soldiers returning from the brutal, gruesome war (there’s another kind?) in Viet Nam by not greeting them, by screaming filth at them, and worst of all, not welcoming them back home. But we seem to have been given another chance this time ‘round. We can, and do, welcome these warriors home, with love, respect, gratitude and warmth.

Obviously people in an actual war experience feelings of courage in ways those of us who have never battled cannot possibly understand. But I think there’s another courage involved in all this too; it’s the courage one must drum deep into one’s psyche by just deciding to go to war. It’s one thing to fight in a war, but quite another to make the decision to become part of one, and it’s that courage I salute in this column.

In a volunteer army, no draft, what goes through the minds of people who make the decision to go and fight in a country most of them can’t find on a map? What’s the process? Does one just think and think about going and worry, feel fear, go over and over the options and then finally just dive in and go? I know the process of joining the military is a lot more involved, but I’m talking about courage here, not being fitted for combat boots. I’m talking about the courage in the hearts of men and women who decide to go, not the obvious courage of fighters who are already there, wherever “there” is.

I wonder how people, especially the young, screw up their courage and decide to fight. And then go do it! It can’t be like making a decision to schedule a colonoscopy; it’s far more horrific than that. It can’t be easy to tell one’s family that one’s decided to go. I understand that with career military, going to war can be simply part of the deal; it may happen. They train in case it does happen. But for anyone having to decide to go, it can’t be a decision that’s made lightly, casually; it can’t ever be easy.

I know the courage to say to one’s self, “yes, OK, I’ll go and fight” doesn’t exactly match the courage of being in an actual raging battle. And yet while it’s somewhat different, it’s as strong a courage I think, and I commend those who have made that difficult, terrible decision, knowing the end results may be worse than all imaginings.

Watching those brave souls in camouflage arriving back home as they did, hearing the cheers, seeing the tears, the kids, parents, grandparents, friends, siblings, spouses in their joyful collisions has made me think hard about the courage they all pulled into themselves when they decided to go, when even perhaps the decision was made for them, but they went anyway.

How do they do that? Where does that courage come from? Is one born with it or is it learned? Who knows? What matters most though, is that they did it.

Bravo.