My eyes teared. I could only nod my head in assent.
“Then, phew.” He dismissed my problem with a wave of his hand. Absolution.
Reconciling the moral conduct we are taught as children with the brutal actions of war has been a problem for warriors of good conscience for centuries. The Mahabharata, the classic Indian epic, which was written down and first preserved around AD 400 but has its roots centuries earlier in the mythologies of the Indo-Aryan invaders and the people they conquered, speaks directly to this dilemma. Much of it takes the form of a beautifully written poetic dialogue called the Bhagavad Gita between Arjuna, a human warrior, and Krishna, a god who has taken the human form of Arjuna’s charioteer.15 Arjuna, the warrior hero of the myth, is drawn up in his chariot before the enemy hosts. The battle is impending. On the enemy side he sees his own relatives and many friends. No one wants to fight kith and kin, and any conscious warrior of the future is going to be a person who sees all humanity as brothers and sisters.
Arjuna cast his eyes on the grand spectacle. He saw the heroes ready for battle, and he saw there all those who were dear to him. They were grandfathers, teachers, uncles, brothers, sons, dear friends, comrades. He was overcome with compassion for all of them. His voice shook with grief and he said: “Krishna, I feel an awful weakness stealing over me... Krishna, my head is reeling and I feel faint. My limbs refuse to bear me up... I look at all these who are my kinsmen and I feel that I cannot fight with them... I do not want to win this war... For the passing pleasure of ruling this world why should I kill the sons of Dhritarashtra? They have been greedy, evil, avaricious, covetous. I grant all that. But the fact remains that they are my cousins and it is a sin to kill one’s own kinsmen. I would rather turn away from the war. It will even be better if I am killed by Duryodhana. I do not want to fight.” Arjuna collapsed on the seat of his chariot. He had thrown away his bow and arrows and was overcome by grief.
At first Krishna tries to buck up Arjuna by appealing to his reason, explaining how critical the situation is. This fails. Then he appeals to pride, chiding Arjuna for letting his feelings get the better of him. This fails too. Finally, Krishna taunts Arjuna about his manhood. This is, traditionally, where most men rose to the challenge, at least prior to Vietnam and the women’s movement. Arjuna is not swayed.
“How can I aim my arrows at Bhishma and Drona?” Arjuna asks Krishna. “I cannot do it. Krishna, you know that I am not a coward. This is not weakness. It is compassion for the enemy.” Arjuna sat silent, refusing to fight.
Even two thousand years ago it was understood that appeals to manhood and social duties were not sufficient to kill our brothers on the other side. Krishna presses forward, this time appealing to religion, usually a surefire persuader. “Believe me,” Krishna says, “the eternal soul is imperishable. No one can comprehend it... You do not kill and your victim is not killed... Weapons cannot hurt the soul; fire cannot burn it; water cannot wet it. It is eternal and it is the same forever. Once you realize this truth there is no need for you to grieve.”
Religion of course is still exploited to get men to kill their brothers. But saying it’s okay to kill my own brother because, just maybe, the universe is a vast recycling plant had about the same effect on Arjuna that it would on any of us today—none.
Realizing that this whole line of argument will go nowhere with Arjuna, Krishna finally gets down to what I consider to be the only argument and what is, indeed, the point of the whole story. He appeals to the fact that we humans are caught in existence and we must make choices. That is, when we are confronted by the very real existence of forces for good or for evil, we must choose sides. Krishna states in the Mahabharata, “It is not right to stand by and watch an injustice being done. There are times when active interference is necessary.”16
However, the warrior has to be very careful about whom the politicians make out to be devils. We have to choose sides with limited information and limited self-knowledge. Many decent Germans ended up sacrificing everything fighting for a government that was murdering millions in concentration camps and saying it was defending their fellow countrymen against the onslaught of Bolshevism and “international Jewry.” For myself and many other Americans, a generation later, we ended up fighting for a government that was napalming villages to defend the shoppers back home against the evils of “international Communism.” These “devils” begin to look suspiciously similar—and spurious. It is precisely along these lines that I became appalled at the rhetoric that came out of Washington in support of going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I supported going after Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, but most terrorists aren’t devils—they’re just horribly ignorant people who got riled up casting our side as devils. Turning warfare into crusades only invites clouded judgment and fierce self-righteous opposition that may otherwise have crumbled. It also evokes crusades on the other side and vengeful retaliation. People can eventually judge rationally whether or not they’re on the wrong side of a political fight about human rights and values and it would just be better to quit fighting; people generally cannot judge rationally when it’s a religious fight.
Krishna tells Arjuna that there are two paths to realization, the path of knowledge by meditation and the path of work for men of action. These same two paths are identical to those portrayed in our Western mythology, for example the story of the knight Parzival, which is part of the Grail legend. There the fisher king’s brother represents the path of knowledge. He is a monk and religious contemplative whom Parzival meets just before reentering the Grail castle. Parzival himself shows us the path of action, the same path put forward by Krishna to Arjuna.
Krishna says to Arjuna: “Remember, no man can be still, even for a moment. He has to do work. It is a law of nature that man should work... By not working you cannot live. Even the bodily functions need work to sustain them.
“How then can one escape the bondage of work? By performing a sacrifice for the general good. That is the secret of work well done. Work should be done so that others may benefit by it and not you. Dedicate all the work to me, and fight.”
When you dedicate the work to Krishna it means that you get your ego out of the way, that you do it for some reason other than personal gain or pleasure. It also means acting in the name of a universal spiritual, ethical, or political principle. Dedicating the work is precisely what I and many others did not do in Vietnam.
Those few who do dedicate their actions in this way, no matter which side they fight on, will very likely fare better in the guilt department than those who do not. For example, it is likely that the young Canadian, British, American, and other NATO or coalition troops who fought in Afghanistan or Iraq will have less guilt the more they believe they were fighting to stop a clear terrorist threat or overthrow a brutal dictatorship or religious reign of terror. They will suffer less than those of us who fought in Vietnam for a less clearly defined cause. Sadly, as the two present wars drag on, the original clearly defined missions and reasons for being there have become less clear. The less clear the justifiable motives, the more difficulty returning veterans will have with guilt.
Unfortunately, when you dedicate your actions to Krishna you can be wrong. Terrorists, for example, who have dedicated their actions to Allah will have no guilt about these actions, no matter how horrific. Until they realize they were lured into a misunderstanding of the most basic tenants of Islam, there will be even less of a moral brake on unnecessary violence. The same goes for crusading Christians. So Krishna’s answer, “Dedicate all the work to me, and fight,” helps warriors deal with guilt and doubt only if they never come to believe they made a mistake about what they were fighting for. Because of this, it behooves the warriors to pay close attention before they start.
Even though it is unrealistic to believe one will be able to stay continually engaged in combat at the detached level of Arjuna, an idealized character, and even though Krishna’s advice has snares, such as being caught up in an ideal that one later
regrets, it is the best way I know to minimize the guilt about killing in combat. Try to achieve this ideal when entering into the fray in the first place. One can only hope the chosen transpersonal reasons are good ones; but if they are not, there will still be less guilt if you kill for these wrong transpersonal reasons than if you kill for selfish ones. The more one kills for personal reasons, such as anger, revenge, fame, career, or political advancement, the heavier will be the guilt.
While Campbell and the Mahabharata are certainly correct in saying that if we perform with a noble heart and dedicate our efforts to some higher good we minimize the suffering of guilt afterward, this unfortunately will not eliminate the suffering of mourning. Guilt is different from mourning.
In virtually all warfare, other than a direct confrontation with terrorists or with totally uncoerced professional soldiers when there are no bystanders around, the warrior must understand that almost all those he kills, civilian or military, will probably not be there by their own choice. Even with that wonderful moment of absolution from Joseph Campbell, I still carry considerable emotion over killing conscripted young men ultimately no different from my own sons. But I have grown to understand that in the cases where I killed to help or save my fellow Marines I don’t feel guilty. I feel sad. The warrior of the future will simply have to take on this pain and perhaps realize before doing the killing that it will be a cost worth paying. Look at depictions of Abraham Lincoln’s face at the end of his presidency and you’ll get some idea of what I mean. I don’t think he felt guilty about fighting to save the Union or end slavery. He mourned the dreadful cost. If I were able to choose, I’d choose sadness over guilt.
On the surface, Campbell’s and Krishna’s answers about having to act in the world of duality, into which you had no choice about being born, seem to let people off the moral hook. “Well,” one might say, “if it’s all just a cosmic game and a matter of chance where you end up fighting, then what the hell?” Once you understand this answer more deeply, however, rather than being let off the moral hook you end up with it firmly set in your mouth. That moral hook is conscious awareness. If it wasn’t something you were aware of previously, you have just now had the hook set. It will hurt. You now know that you are on one side and your enemy is on the other. You are conscious that you have a choice to make about killing that other person. You have to choose to do something. Even refusing to think deeply about it is choosing to do something. You must decide to pursue action with a noble heart or not. Doing nothing is an action. You can’t get out of this.
I don’t know whether or not George Bush went to war with a noble heart. Only George knows. I do know that he knew, as did we all, there was a risk that a sick man with a lot of power and money could help destroy tens of thousands of Americans. Because he, and we, knew about the torture and rape cells, he had to choose whether or not to allow torture, rape, and horrible deaths to go unchecked. Whatever his true motives, it is clear that the president chose to do what the United Nations chose not to do. Those diplomats had the same problem he and all of us had, and I only hope they all took the problem seriously.
I know that more than twenty people are dead directly as a result of my behavior, but the people they killed are dead too. Saying I was right and they were wrong, or vice versa, isn’t going to make me feel better, or their mothers and sisters, or the mothers and sisters of the ones they killed. I understand why Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their dead.”17 It’s the future killing that counts now. All any of us can do is wrestle with our own noble and ignoble intentions so that when we are asked to consider life-and-death issues, we’ll do it honestly.
In the divine play of opposites the warrior knows only one thing for certain, that a side must be chosen. Once a side is chosen, the actions have to be dedicated to what is beyond the world of opposites. Even by remaining neutral you help one side or the other, because withholding help is helping the other side win. By not helping one side or the other, you influence the outcome. Jesus put this very succinctly when he said, “He that is not with me is against me.”18
Having chosen a side, we cannot do so thinking we are knights in shining armor. As I have clearly indicated, I supported the decision to go to war to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and remove Saddam Hussein from power. What scares me is the attitude we chose to do this with. And I mean we. There was just as much self-righteous knight-in-shining-armor idiocy going on with those opposed to the Iraq war as with those who supported it. Going on a crusade to eliminate evil, whether you think it is Saddam Hussein and his Baathist cronies or George Bush and his oil cronies, is very different from reluctantly and sadly eliminating evil because it is a loathsome task that a conscientious person sometimes has to do. When the dog gets rabies it is a sad event, especially for the dog, yet the dog still must be killed. Killing the dog and crowing about it on TV is wrong. So is calling the man who put the dog down an animal hater and picketing his front lawn. Being a knight in shining armor only results in our unrecognized dark side roaring out of control. Donald Sandner puts it as follows: “If man is to sacrifice the intensity of his animal nature he must also sacrifice his divine pretensions.”19 A warrior must try his or her best to be on the “right” side but shouldn’t naively expect to choose wisely all the time. None of us, from the president on down, has complete information. Even if we did have it, how many of us are able to step outside our upbringing and bring only clear intellect, devoid of cultural prejudices, to bear on the decision. Any cause, no matter how well intentioned, may indeed be in vain. Think of the noble fighters in the communist revolution in Russia, the early Baathists in Iraq, the wonderful humans who fought for the Confederacy. Think of the difference between a young German who went to war for his fatherland and another young German who went to war to rise in rank and power in the new Reich. Although both lived to see their cause exposed as a lie, the former has far less to deal with than the latter.
There is no foolproof formula for choosing the right side; there are only guidelines. The warrior operates in extreme zones. The more removed a situation like combat gets from everyday life, the less applicable the guidelines get. This is why we must rely so much on character rather than rules when discussing and experiencing extreme situations like war.
Warriors will always have to deal with guilt and mourning. It is unfortunate that the guilt and mourning reside almost entirely with those asked to do the dirty work. Choosing to fight for the right reasons can assuage this guilt. Mourning can lessen it. But all warriors or erstwhile warriors will need to understand that, just like rucksack, ammunition, water, and food, guilt and mourning will be among the things they carry. They will shoulder it all for the society they fight for.
4
NUMBNESS AND
VIOLENCE
The ethical warrior must avoid getting crushed between falling in love with the power and thrill of destruction and death dealing and falling into numbness to the horror. Numbness is learned in our society from an early age. The numbness protects us. We want it. The warrior of the future, however, will have to break away from the conditioned numbness, opening up to all the pain, and at the same time recognize the danger of opening up to the rapture of violent transcendence.
I have a friend who was a Navy A-4 pilot with two carrier tours bombing North Vietnam. These were some of the toughest bombing assignments ever experienced in the history of air warfare. Combine these missions with night landings on a tossing carrier deck and you begin to appreciate that, truly, these pilots were brave men.
The time my friend spent flying these missions has left a deep imprint in him, but like most Vietnam veterans he hardly speaks about it. He carries on, a successful businessman, an active contributor in his local community, his wife an active member of a local church. We occasionally go up in his Cessna. He knows I understand he is simply playing when he suddenly rolls the Cessna over, comes down close to the deck, and “strafes” somebody on a bicycle, or when he talks about distance to target instead of
the next airfield. He can let this stuff out with me because I don’t judge him about it. He knows I’ve felt it myself.
I happened to have a lunch appointment with him on April 16, 1986, the day after the United States first bombed Libya. I asked him what he thought about it, expecting the usual, reasoned businessman’s answer. He put his fork down on the white tablecloth. His jaw was working as he stared down at his plate, completely silent. Then he looked up at me, moisture making his eyes gleam. “Goddamn, I wish I was there!” That’s all he said.
What do we do with these feelings? He has them. I have them. Where can we place this energy?
Many people’s initial reaction to this story is that something is wrong with this guy. “Doesn’t he think about hurting innocent people?” I actually believe he does, but later. It certainly isn’t his initial reaction. And that’s why I tell the story. There’s a deep and honest part in this ex-Navy flier that he’s not afraid to let out, at least in front of me. It lies close to the surface in him. Imagine the conflicting forces and pressures that are in play every day as this guy goes dutifully to the office, with his wife to church, and to his kids’ ball games.
These same unconscious conflicting pressures are there, in varying degrees, in all of us. But most of us, unlike my friend, keep them well hidden. It’s easier to discharge these unwanted tensions by condemning people like my friend than it is to live consciously with them.
The least acknowledged aspect of war, today, is how exhilarating it is. This aspect makes people very uncomfortable. Not only is it politically incorrect; it goes against the morality taught in our schools and churches. The hard truth is that ever since I can remember I have loved thinking about war—and I wasn’t the only one. I played it in the woods with my friends. I read about it, and people wrote what I read. I saw it in movies, and people filmed what I saw. As a college student I played strategy board games—and people designed and sold those games. In Vietnam there were times when I swelled with pride at the immense destruction I could deal out. There is a deep savage joy in destruction, a joy beyond ego enhancement. Maybe it is loss of ego. I’m told it’s the same for religious ecstasy. It’s the child toppling the tower of blocks he’s spent so much time carefully constructing. It’s the lighting of the huge bonfire, the demolition of a building, the shattering of a clay pigeon. It’s firecrackers and destruction derbies on the Fourth of July. Part of us loves to destroy. Nietzsche says, “I am by nature warlike. To attack is among my instincts.”20
What It Is Like to Go to War Page 6