War Wounds the Grandchildren

I read the headline and scrolled past the photo in the news this morning, of a Ukrainian family killed by a Russian mortar, because I knew it would hit me too hard, but then I started reading the article and started sobbing anyway.

The traumas of war last for generations. The Syrians, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Ukrainians, and the Russian soldiers will live with this for the rest of their lives, and pass it on to children and grandchildren. 

I know this because my mother was born in East Prussia in 1939. Her father was a soldier who served throughout World War II (yes, on the German side) and was killed in March 1945. She and her family fled East Prussian for what became West Germany in late 1944, spending time in a refugee camp, traveling by horse-drawn carriage (because the army had appropriated all the motor vehicles), at night, when they were less likely to be bombed or shot. 

The stories have been spilling out of the various siblings and cousins recently. One lives in Australia now, two in the US, others in Frankfurt and Munich, but in their minds they are back in early childhood, recalling the bombings and gunfire and fear. 

Children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors know this story well. 

So much fear. 

Fear passed to me as a child by my mother's stories. Fear passed another generation to my son, who as a first-year college student is worried for his friends doing ROTC, and even that he might get called to fight. Fear passed through my mother's stories, and also undoubtedly from me directly, though I couldn't tell you exactly how. 

And the wounds of the war going on in Ukraine right now will be carried into the future by the children. 

A million children are among those who have fled the country. They may return, they may have to make lives elsewhere. 

Either way, they will be scarred, and so will their children, and their children's children.

Aleppo and the Children

I read the news from Aleppo -- residential neighborhoods shelled, civilians shot, women committing suicide rather than be raped -- with a heavy, heavy heart.

New York Times

Because, you see, my mother was born in 1939 in what was then called East Prussia and is now Poland, and in 1944, she and her family fled their home ahead of Russian troops moving across the area.

I've heard the stories so many times. Lying in a horse-drawn wagon covered in blankets looking up at the stars, traveling only at night. Saved by a Polish housekeeper (my mother's family is German) who spoke to a guard and got the family through. Three children climbing into the window of the train headed west by their very pregnant mother, who then persuaded the guards to let her on the train as well: "My children are in there." Life as refugees.

Yes, they were Germans. They were on the wrong side. Had they been Jews, of course, it would have been so much the worse for them. But at the same time, my mother and her two, soon to be three, younger siblings, were children, children who saw too much, suffered too much, had too much responsibility.

And so when I hear the news from Aleppo, I think of the children. Children who, if they survive, will bear psychic scars for the rest of their lives.

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Is there anything we can do?

In the UK, The Independent recommends people call their ministers of parliament and ask them to start air drops of supplies, and put pressure on the Russian and Syrian governments to end hostilities, so I would think comparable calls to US senators and representatives would be worthwhile.

HuffPo has a list of organizations attempting to give aid in Syria that are taking donations, though at the moment many of them are hamstrung by the level of violence and chaos on the ground.

Of less immediate impact. scientific consensus is that drought in Syria, and the resulting pressure on food and other resources, is a contributing factor. Drought caused by climate change, that is. Educate people you know about the potentially dire impacts of climate change: in some reasons, considerably more drastic than 70-degree days in New York City in November or a little more rain or snow in the winter.

Remembering the Dead

I find Memorial Day complicated: my maternal grandfather fought for the wrong side.

My mother grew up, and I was born, in Germany. For her, there is only "the war" -- World War II, which left her family refugees, her father killed in action. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm glad he didn't survive the conflict and I'm glad I never had to meet him.

The story is he served in a tank unit. The story is he was a mechanic. The story is he was a common soldier. The story is he was a lieutenant. A photo shows a uniform with the death's-head insignia. The story is he was wounded and sent home, yet chose to return to combat. Twice.

Some day, I will go into the archives and find out what facts may have survived. I want to know; I don't want to know.

It's small comfort that my other grandfather served in the US merchant marine in that same war, or that my father and several of his relatives served the US military, and even, several generations back, the Union army.

Today, we're exhorted to remember those killed in action for the United States. World War II was surely a just war; the enormity of the Holocaust overshadows much else about the conflict. Yet the US did much that was unjust in that war, interning people of Japanese descent, refusing entry to Jewish refugees, discriminating against African-Americans who were drafted or volunteered to serve.

The wars we have fought since then are more difficult to justify. Yet American soldiers die, or they return alive but wounded in body and soul. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. Returning veterans are refused the care they need to re-enter society as successfully functioning civilians, even allowed to die for lack of medical care.

Today's parades, in honoring the veterans and the fallen, seem also to celebrate war itself. We need to find a more nuanced way to remember the past, and acknowledge the realities of the present. We need to learn to seek peace and pursue it.

Letter to the President

My brother sent me a copy of a letter he wrote to the President back in September.  I asked him for permission to post it here, and he sent me a revision, and then I got busy and didn't get to it.  It's out of date now, but it's still a good letter -- so here you go.

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Dear President Obama:

As a lifelong Democrat who voted for you twice, I have supported nearly all of your political policies.

 

As an environmentalist who recognizes the need for petroleum, I welcome your middle-of-the-road environmental positions. As a member of the middle-class who was laid off during the recession, I appreciate your laws mandating health insurance for every United States citizen. As a common-sense Democrat, I have supported the many political positions that are both yours and the Democratic Party’s. However, the issue of military engagement with Syria has propelled me to speak out against U.S. involvement.

 

When George W. Bush was president and engaged the U.S. in numerous military conflicts, Democrats were up in arms. With the exception of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan — which most people supported — Democrats, rightfully so, spoke out against war, opposed the use of U.S. arms and personnel in foreign conflicts and derided the Republican propensity to start wars.

 

When you were elected president, you forged a new foreign policy. You pledged arbitration not arms, mediation not military action. I, along with most Democrats, have supported this ideology.

 

Today, as in the past few decades, the people most likely to support U.S. military involvement in foreign wars do not have sons or daughters in the military. (Personally I do not have military-age children). The question to ask those who ardently support U.S. military involvement in Syria or other countries is: “Is U.S. involvement so important that you are willing to sacrifice the life of one of your children?”

 

As you are well aware, the demographics of the U.S. military are overwhelmingly minority and low-income. This is the demographic who will lose their lives in any protracted military involvement — not the children of the white elite such as John Kerry, John Boehner or John McCain.

 

United States citizens are not only war-weary, but we are war-wary. Will Syria become another Egypt? Bouncing from one totalitarian regime to another? Or will it become another Iraq? Swallowing thousands of lives as well as trillions of dollars? Aside from the human death toll, what about the financial cost of war? With the U.S. still reeling from its depression, still mired in a prolonged recession, the country cannot afford to endlessly print greenbacks to pay for bombs.

 

For all of these reasons — ideological, financial and humanitarian — I am imploring you to retreat from your plan of U.S. military involvement in Syria. As a Democrat and a voter, I am asking you to implement your campaign promises of Peace not War.

 

Sincerely,

Chris Estes