UNDERSTANDING WAR

I had one of those crazy ideas this morning: it is to use my blog—at least for awhile—as a forum for the above—understanding war. Iraq has been in my mind again, as I’ve just written about, probably because it is always on TV. There is no escaping it and I suspect it will continue to be in our face at least until the coming presidential election. The political battle will certainly keep it there.

But my mission in trying to gain a deeper understanding—for me and anyone else who cares to join me—goes beneath politics. Politics might be the forum for discussing issues of war but my belief is that the root causes of war, the blood flowing in its veins, is way beneath the level of politics.

I think, given that my journal (my blog) started out as an exploration of this man’s inner world, that a frank discussion of war won’t be off-putting. The way I look at it, is that war is something that affects us all—whether we like it or not. So discussing it might be somewhat unpleasant and difficult, like discussing one’s sexual life with a therapist. But, like that, once you get the discussion rolling, it is very freeing and begins to feel good.

For me, anyway, there is no escaping war. My year in Vietnam defined much of the remainder of my life right up until today. And certain other experiences, notably, the one on 9/11/2001 when it became my job to photograph the World Trade Center disaster from an Army Black Hawk helicopter, have only served to convince me that one of the reasons I am on this planet is to write about, to understand, to get to the bottom of the subject of war. I am not a sophisticated political thinker, I may not even be such s thoughtful writer, but I will, in my own way, do my best with this subject. As always, it is mostly a selfish enterprise, done for the benefit of one persons’ understanding—my own.

Since we’ve moved out here to California, I’ve had a renewed interest in leaning about Indians—Native Americans. I ran into a copy of BLACK ELK SPEAKS while unpacking. This morning I happened to read a chapter written about a battle scene as well as anything I’ve ever read.

To understand what war is all about, what better place to start than to put ourselves in the middle of a battle—jump right in, so to speak. (Note: "Wasichu" is what the Lakota’s—Black Elk’s tribe—call the white men.)

"Fire Thunder Speaks:
I was 16 years old when this happened, and after the big council on the Powder we had moved over to the Tongue River where we were camping at the mouth of Peno Creek. There were many of us there. Red Cloud was over all of us, but the chief of our band was Big Road. We started out on horseback just about sunrise, riding up the creek toward the soldiers’ town on the Piney, for we were going to attack it. The sun was about half way up when we stopped at the place where the Wasichu’s road came down a steep, narrow ridge and crossed the creek. It was a good place to fight, so we sent some men ahead to coax the soldiers out. While they were gone, we divided into two parts and hid in the gullies on both sides of the ridge and waited. After a long while we heard a shot up over the hill, and we knew the soldiers were coming. So we held the noses of our ponies that they might not whinny at the soldiers’ horses, so that the soldiers would think they were worn our. Then the men we had sent ahead came running down the road between us, and the soldiers on horseback followed, shooting. When they came to the flat at the bottom of the hill, the fighting began all at once. I had a sorrel horse, and just as I was going to get on him, the soldiers turned around and began to fight their way back up the hill. I had a six-shooter that I had traded for, and also bow and arrows. When the soldiers started back, I held my sorrel with one hand and began killing them with the six-shooter, for they came close to me. There were many bullets, but there were more arrows—so many that it was like a cloud of grasshoppers all above us and around the soldiers; and our people, shooting across, hit each other. The soldiers were falling all the while they were fighting back up the hill, and their horses got loose. Many of our people chased the horses, but I was not after horses; I was after Wasichus. When the soldiers got on top, there were not many of them left and they had no place to hide. They were fighting hard. We were told to crawl up on them. And we did. When we were close, someone yelled: "Let us go!" Then we all cried, "Hoka hey!" and rushed at them. I was young then and quick on my feet, and I was one of the first to get in among the soldiers. They got up and fought very hard until not one of them was alive. They had a dog with them, and he started back up the road for the soldiers’ town, howling as he ran. He was the only one left. I did not shoot at him because he looked too sweet. But many did shoot, and he died full of arrows. So there was nobody left of the soldiers. Dead men and horses and wounded Indians were scattered all the way up the hill, and their blood was frozen, for a storm had come u and it was very cold and getting colder all the time. We left all the dead lying there, for the ground was solid, and we picked up our wounded and started back; but we lost most of them before we reached our camp at the mouth of the Peno. There was a big blizzard that night; and some of the wounded who did not die on the was, died after we got home. This was the time when Black Elk’s father had his leg broken."

This description of a young Indian warrior in a battle in the late 1800s could have been, with a few changes in weaponry, written about a firefight in Vietnam. What is so telling to me is the mention of the dog, which the warrior didn’t shoot at—"because he looked too sweet. But many did and he died full of arrows." This allows us to feel the warrior’s emotion, something which enters into any battle ever fought.

But about war—what are its roots? Why do we end up in battles? I believe wars—in some ways—are similar to natural events like earthquakes. When the tension and stress builds up enough, it must be released. The tension that builds between nations is just a larger example of the tension which builds up between people and released in anger.

Is it ever possible to prevent anger? I don’t know.