Thursday, September 11, 2003
Winston Churchill, perhaps the greatest man of the 20th Century, had an idea. As the American and British Armies slogged up the Italian boot, the British Prime Minister decided it would help if the Allies invaded ahead of the front, and he chose the Italian town of Anzio as the location.
In the Allied command, no one but Churchill thought the invasion of Anzio a good idea. Eisnehower had rejected the idea months before Churchill resurrected it. But Churchill fought hard for his belief that, in the end, proved horribly wrong. The invasion of Anzio turned into a long, slow slaughter of Allied troops. More than 4,000 Americans died there, and the battle did little to accellerate the main Allied thrust from the south and nothing to hasten the end of the war.
We think of World War II as a perfect war: Perfectly moral, perfectly heroic, perfectly executed. But it wasn't. It was in many ways a mess. The Allies feuded with each other, sometimes in highly unattractive ways that ultimately caused Allied deaths. The best intentions went awry, and detailed and sensible plans collapsed under enemy fire. There were moments of grave doubt.
I asked a veteran of World War II what it was that kept people going during the war. I've interviewed hundreds of World War II vets, but this particular vet had had the most wretched job of any of them: He was a Coast Guardsman piloting landing craft for amphibeous invasions in the Pacific. Every month or so, he'd gear up for another assault, and while the Marines he delivered only had to land on each beach once, he'd go in three, four, sometimes five times. He told of plowing his little boat through bodies floating in crimson water, and times when he couldn't reach the beach because the bodies were too thick to get through.
"At the time," he said, "during the battles, we kept going because that was the best way for you and for your buddies to survive. Push forward, win, end it. But in the larger sense, we kept going because failure was just not something we could live with."
Two years after 9/11, both Anzio and the Coast Guardsman are worth remembering. Anzio because the war against terrorism will not always be perfectly waged, and the Coast Guardsman because he persevered in unimaginably horrible circumstances. He delivered young men to their deaths and went back for more because it was the best of a bad set of options. He had no voice in the initiation of the war, and would surely have preferred to stay home, just as we would prefer not to be in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As at Anzio, not everything in this war we did not chose will go perfectly. And like the Coast Guardsman, nothing is going to save us except victory.
In the Allied command, no one but Churchill thought the invasion of Anzio a good idea. Eisnehower had rejected the idea months before Churchill resurrected it. But Churchill fought hard for his belief that, in the end, proved horribly wrong. The invasion of Anzio turned into a long, slow slaughter of Allied troops. More than 4,000 Americans died there, and the battle did little to accellerate the main Allied thrust from the south and nothing to hasten the end of the war.
We think of World War II as a perfect war: Perfectly moral, perfectly heroic, perfectly executed. But it wasn't. It was in many ways a mess. The Allies feuded with each other, sometimes in highly unattractive ways that ultimately caused Allied deaths. The best intentions went awry, and detailed and sensible plans collapsed under enemy fire. There were moments of grave doubt.
I asked a veteran of World War II what it was that kept people going during the war. I've interviewed hundreds of World War II vets, but this particular vet had had the most wretched job of any of them: He was a Coast Guardsman piloting landing craft for amphibeous invasions in the Pacific. Every month or so, he'd gear up for another assault, and while the Marines he delivered only had to land on each beach once, he'd go in three, four, sometimes five times. He told of plowing his little boat through bodies floating in crimson water, and times when he couldn't reach the beach because the bodies were too thick to get through.
"At the time," he said, "during the battles, we kept going because that was the best way for you and for your buddies to survive. Push forward, win, end it. But in the larger sense, we kept going because failure was just not something we could live with."
Two years after 9/11, both Anzio and the Coast Guardsman are worth remembering. Anzio because the war against terrorism will not always be perfectly waged, and the Coast Guardsman because he persevered in unimaginably horrible circumstances. He delivered young men to their deaths and went back for more because it was the best of a bad set of options. He had no voice in the initiation of the war, and would surely have preferred to stay home, just as we would prefer not to be in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As at Anzio, not everything in this war we did not chose will go perfectly. And like the Coast Guardsman, nothing is going to save us except victory.
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
I'm writing this while I'm listening to a friend on the radio. He's never been a radio talk show host before, and he's filling in for a nationally syndicated radio host, and he's doing a really good job. Of course, he's a right-wing crackpot, but he's also smart and funny and sounds remarkably good. And it's weird hearing him on the air talking about the Democrats who are running for President.
