Passion and Realities…

Posted 16Aug18.

“How can a passion for military history be reconciled with the realities of warfare?

I have a life long passion for military history and warfare. But I’ve been exposed to a variety of descriptive personal memoirs that almost make me feel guilty for enjoying the subject. How do you enjoy building that model of a Lancaster when the real one caused its crews to have nightmares?”

Hi Eric,

My initial reaction to your question was somewhat odd:

“Good. Someone is paying attention to history.”

I have wrestled with this same contrast.

My total experience in a combat theater has been about 36 months – 24 of those as a crew chief on Medevac missions in Iraq. There wasn’t much I hadn’t seen by the time I left Iraq for the final time in 2010. Upon retirement, I focused on my Bachelor’s in Military History and completed my studies last November. I share these points for the sake of relevance and perspective.

First of all, don’t feel guilty for your interests. Pay attention to the “why” you are interested, “what” is interesting, and “how” those lessons can be applied to avoid a repetition of the same mistakes in the future. If anything, guilt should be reserved for those who aren’t interested in learning about history – especially military history. Yes, that sounds extremely judgmental, but I tend to hate cyclic stupidity.

History is never squeaky clean. Amad Nisar’s recent answer to the question “What are some atrocities in world history that have been largely forgotten?” is an excellent example of this fact. The preceding answers to your question are also very illustrative of the balance between personal ethics/values and the study of some of the darker aspects of our past – especially Jon Davis’ answer which highlights the perils of optimistic idealism. In fact, Marko Krsmanovic’s comment about the Second World War “…since it has [happened], I might as well learn about it” brought to mind an academic debate a friend had about the ethics of using data from Japanese and German human experiments in modern applications. Movies and video games (and to some extent, even academic programs) often forget about these aspects; therefore, history – for some – becomes sanitized, bland, and dangerously close to being disregarded.

As for me, my interest in history took a bizarre turn not too long ago. My studies had found me reading primary sources which I sorta wish I hadn’t, but the resulting blog post effectively captured the essence of the dilemma: how and why would someone study something so terrible?

My answer?

To understand the causes leading up to it.

For someone to foolishly assume that the study of history offers a pathway to preventing war is to miss the point that man has been consistently violent since the beginning. To those who embrace the idea of pacifism, I usually ask them to name one civilization or country that has existed in our past that has not fought with another people or nation. I’m still waiting for a plausible answer. However, by understanding how conflict starts, one might appreciate where they fit into the larger picture and adjust/prepare accordingly. By understanding why wars take their emotional toll on the participants (willing and unwilling alike), we might develop better measures to address the psychological issues that are associated with conflict. We may never move away from wanting to fight, but we can improve our understanding of the processes involved.

Finally, military history can offer inspiration. I ended up posting a lot of my papers and ideas on my blog, and one of the most popular posts was just something I wrote in response to all of the speculation about whether or not folks’ military surplus rifles had been used in combat. My interests in military history range from looking at how the myths of public opinion have been changed as a result of the First World War, to the comedy of errors experienced by the USS Porter in 1943, to the present dilemmas posed by the neglect of historic artifacts and the apathy that can be fostered by poor representation/interpretation. My interest, like yours, is more of a passion, but the inspiration which results may… just may… have some influence later down the road.

No one can interpret the realities of warfare in a way that will make everyone happy, but what is important is how you process the past and what you will do with that knowledge.