Romance of War

I love M*A*S*H. I have many memories of this show growing up. I used to sit on my parents bed with my parents and my sister and watch the late night reruns of the seasons. I have seen a large majority of this show simply because of wandering in to say good night to my parents and it's incredible.

I recently found the last two seasons on DVD and have been tearing through the tenth season. It's interesting because the episodes developed a lot into a more mature way of seeing war and dealing with the stress of life. The characters also develop into people who have more depth than the simple pranks that they pull and the affairs that they have.

One of the episodes that hit me so hard recently was about a war correspondent who was at the 4077 writing about six pints of blood that had come from the States. He was following the blood from the readers to the soldiers it would help. It was interesting to hear the stories of how they were injured and what he sent home over the wire. He said that it was to make war seem as though it was full of glory and romance. I have a very difficult time with that.

I am currently waiting to hear if a friend will be posted to convoy duty in Afghanistan. There are few worries that occupy my mind more than that. I am also waiting to hear from a soldier who was posted to Lebanon. But I have been waiting for a response to that for more than six months.

When I open the newspaper in the morning, there is almost always the face of another soldier who barely looks old enough to drink. Then there are the details of when his body will being shipped home.

I have no idea why the idea of war as a romantic ideal came into being. I don't think there has ever been a time in the history of the world when war has actually been romantic. There is nothing romantic about pain, separation and death. There is nothing romantic about fathers not coming home and young girls losing their sweethearts.

Every time I think about all those who never made it home, lyrics from John Denver's "The Wall" always come into my mind. "And every name's a father, or a husband or a son. Or a daughter or a brother or a cousin to someone." Every name, every person lost is someone important to someone. There is no one who is not hurt when there is another life lost on the battlefields of whatever fight is found to be worth fighting at the time. There will always be pain when someone leaves and even more when they do not come home in the way they were supposed to. There is no romance in war. There is no romance in fighting, especially when it is something that you do not believe in. There is no glory in pain and there is no support for those who are left behind or those who can come walking back.

We want there to be romance in war. We want there to be something worth fighting for. We want there to be a reason that we send many of our young men away to not come home. We want there to be a reason that the ones who do come home are sometimes tormented by what they have seen. We need there to be something that takes them away from us. The ugly truth is that there isn't. There is no glory and there is no romance. There is only pain.