I don't know but I've been told/My views on the military are stupidly complicated

Eh – so it’s been Anzac Day and while I spent most of the day preparing for a five year old’s birthday party, I have however spent some time yesterday thinking about the military. I didn't manage to get anyone particularly offside with my post about religion, so I'll have another crack, shall I?

Now before you read on, you need to know the following about my bias:

1. I am an out-and-out pacifist, and being a keen fan of talking, believe that diplomatic solutions are almost always best.

2. As a teenager I found the concept of the military in a post-Cold War age hard to fathom. I'm not sure what I think now.


3. I think that the history of war suggests that countries have often engaged in warfare on a faulty or flawed premise.

Anyway, I have the following stories to share:

There’s something happening here/But what it is ain’t exactly clear

Last year, my uncle rang my mother to say that after a lifetime of voting Liberal, he was changing his vote for the Federal election. How did this happen? Well, it was partly due to the fact that my cousin is in the ADF, and his rotation through Iraq was due this year. My uncle told my mother that he would do anything to keep his son out of Iraq, and had changed his view on that war dramatically as the evidentiary base for the war unraveled and also as it became clear, in my uncle’s eyes, that there was not anything approaching “peace” in the country. Regardless of this view however, he was in the unique position to cast his vote based on both self interest (“saving” his son) AND personal morality (“is the war really justified?”). In this sense, my uncle is quite the demographic anomaly.

People get ready/There’s a train a-coming

When my mother was a girl, she and her family used to follow, in an eerily macabre way, the calling of the draft. National Service conscription dictated that a proportion of young men would be drafted into the army, based on the date of their 20th birthday. My grandparents, who were good if conservative people*, were convinced that my mother's eldest brother being called up would “make a man of him”. My grandfather had himself served in World War II, and was of the view that my uncle’s life lacked purpose and direction, no doubt was also concerned about A being caught up with the emerging boomer-led hippy movement. The week that A's month was being balloted, all grew increasingly nervous. When my grandfather confirmed that A had not been called up, he went to his bedroom and quietly sobbed with relief.

And I would rather be anywhere else but here today

My father on the other hand, who only just squeezed into the qualifying time-span for national service, took a different approach. He found himself a cave in the Dandenongs and took a bunch of canned spaghetti and baked beans out there. His plan was to await the letter from the Service, then bolt for the hills. I am always somewhat bemused by this story, although at the same time it was part of my sense of my father's principle, and no doubt has informed my own pacifism. Presumably some would take this as evidence of my dad’s lack of patriotism, sense of duty and service (and possibly suggested that he had seen ‘Hair’ one too many times). But he had a plan, and if there is one thing of which my dad is proud, it is his forward planning.

Save the people/save the children/save the country

Parents of my mum’s friend D took a different approach again. They went through the courts, at significant expense, to have their son registered as a conscientious objector. This was the truth – D was a fiery anti-Vietnam campaigner, but as a university student he would have lacked the funds to do this himself – he was lucky to have a lawyer dad and a social activist mum who could assist him.

But there’s no danger/It’s a professional career

Meanwhile, another friend of Mr Fix’s mum tells the story that National Service changed him for the better. It should be noted that he saw no active service (although he was in Vietnam, he was well to the “back”). He speaks philosophically about what it did for him as an individual, and saw more than one person permanently (and often negatively) by that war. I can't help but wonder what kind of pragmatism was applied by those who were forced to fight against their will, and whether this had a greater psychological impact than for those who had willingly gone to war.


And then I’ve been thinking about a whole other level of the military: moral justification. My cousin has been to East Timor, PNG and the Solomons. He has done humanitarian rebuilding work in the Pacific. He is, as I understand it, reasonably senior and enjoys his work (which, in his “defence”**, is not so much about pointing guns at people).

I don’t know if he supports the war in Iraq, but I DO know, without even asking, that he would not tell me if he didn’t. Several people I have seen discuss the use of the military in various situations have suggested that soldiers and auxillary personnel are unencumbered by notions of the morality of war – that they are motivated by their duty to serve, and the rights and wrongs of the decision to send a country to a war zone are made by others in the political arena. That may well be true, but does that mean they are utterly devoid of an opinion?

So I’ve been wondering: what difference does it make whether a war is justified? Does it make a difference to the families left behind? Would people feel their child’s/father’s/brother’s death more meaningful if it occurred in “the good fight”, rather than a pointless war of dubious motivation? Is it wrong to even be asking this question?



* I’m well aware that this may come across as an unfairly judgmental view of my grandparents– I’m sure that many people of their generation took a similar stance, which would have been the cultural norm.

** Oh yeah, I’ll bring the punny