But I think you too are missing my point. I include PTSD and other trauma as part of or perhaps rather as evidence of the dehumanization of the soldier. Also, I would not reduce the soldier to his or her worst actions. I have friends that served in Iraq. I am pointing the blame not to the soldiers but to those who have perfected the demonic art of warmaking and those who continue to put it into practice.

Re: Henry: If we would deny the dualism which makes monsters out of enemies and dehumanizes them, why should we accept such dualism when it makes monsters out of soldiers and dehumanizes them? That’s the problem. While I agree the first is in error, the second is just as much in error, and indeed, a problem which people like Thich Nhat Hanh saw within the so-called peace movement in the US, demonstrating that the movement was not about peace and engaged in self-contradictory rhetoric suggesting other concerns were behind the movement (fear, hate, etc)..

Fair enough. I’m not familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh’s critique of the “so-called peace movement in the US,” but I would argue that both the Vietnam era and current movements never aspired to be peace movements at all (would that they did!), but anti-war movements — and that fact is no doubt reflected in the rhetorics they employed. As to being self-contradictory, driven by unacknowledged fear, hate, etc — well, they were movements after all, and movements are always and inevitably difficult ventures susceptible to these sorts of problems. Sometimes you have to move anyway.

But what you’ve written here suggests that the anti-war movements demonized and derided soldiers coming back from the war. In fact, both the Vietnam and currentt anti-war movement are notable for rhetorically supporting the troops in the field, for reaching out to returning soldiers, and for the high-profile involvement of veterans. To be sure, returning soldiers have been marginalized in our society, but that can’t be blamed on the anti-war movements. Historical evidence and my own experience suggests that anti-war activists are much more sensitive to the difficulties of returning soldiers and willing to embrace them than the public at large. For historical evidence see the book The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam, by Jerry Lembcke, Vietnam vet and sociologist.

But re: Michael: What I am saying about soldiers and soldiering is not meant to dehumanize them. In fact, what I am arguing, if you recall, is that military training itself dehumanizes soldiers. I am arguing that we should not dehumanize human beings by turning them into soldiers.

I am with you completely on your concern about the way this holiday is used to idealizes and celebrates soldiers and silence any discussion of the moral insanity of being a soldier engaged in modern warfare. But I too take issue with your use of the term “dehumanize.” I am sure the soldier’s life would be easier if he or she actually could be dehumanized. But high rates of PTSD and other psychici trauma is evidence that they remain all too human. At most, I might grant you that military training intends to dehumanize, though even here I think that the military is chillingly aware and realistic about what humans are capable of, and how they can be motivated to do things that most humans in most circumstances would find unthinkably brutal. But we are never reducible to our worst actions. Let’s not speak as though we are.

What I am saying about soldiers and soldiering is not meant to dehumanize them. In fact, what I am arguing, if you recall, is that military training itself dehumanizes soldiers. I am arguing that we should not dehumanize human beings by turning them into soldiers. I am simply pointing to the reality of military life to counter the absolutely idealistic and false representations of soldiers that we hear around these holidays that amount to warmaking hero-worship. The way we honor soldiers is by not making more. Most veterans (who have removed the “ideological blinders,” to re-use that term) will tell you the same thing.

And to butt in on your question for Nate:

1) what is the connection betwen Christ and David and why is David seen as the ideal representation of the king in which Christ is to follow?

This does suggest as I have pointed out, there is something indeed noble in the soldier.

As you know, the Catholic approach to scripture is to resist using proof-texts simply to justify what we are doing in the present. Interpretations that “go against the grain” tend to teach us more about what is going on in a particular passage.

1) Christ follows David in that he is the fulfillment of Israel’s messianic hopes. If Christ were truly to follow David according to his manner of kingship, then Jesus did a terrible job. Christ fulfilled the messianic hope of Israel but also showed that messiahship was about much more than what they expected, and in some ways much different. This is a very basic point.

2) The soldier images in the New Testament are, of course, speaking about a different type of “battle,” as Nate pointed out. Most of those passages in fact show the contradiction between earthly, literal war and the “battle” that is Christian life and salvation history. Most NT scholars will also tell you that these images — much like the Christological titles of “Lord,” Prince of Peace,” etc. — are meant to be subversive and precisely to criticize the empire, its warmaking, and its view of itself as ultimate. I think you are aware of this because if you were to encounter a Christian who today believed that we needed to have a literal war against Islam “because the NT talks about war,” you would undoubtedly make the same argument that I have made — that something else is going on in these texts rather than a simple expression of the “nobility” of the Christian soldier.

The purpose of the military is to wage and win wars. Everything that every soldier does is directed toward that purpose. Even in medical units, soldiers that can be sent back into battle are given more immediate medical attention than those who are thoroughly maimed. So all soldiers, whether a desk clerk or a medical technician (all of whom, by the way, receive combat training), are working toward that fundamental goal: waging and winning wars.

Now sometimes waging and winning war can be a good thing – as described by the just-war theory. Sometimes we must defend ourselves! But how do we defend ourselves? The United States military does not wage war in a Christian way. It wages war in a satanic way – by killing people. Every soldier in the military is trained in death-dealing, and is expected to use that training should the occasion occur.

Nonviolent defensive warfare is very different than violent offensive warfare. Every bit of training that American soldiers receive is destructive, not defensive. We train them to shoot rifles. We train them to throw grenades. We train them to shoot-n-move. We train them to use all sorts of weapons – weapons whose purpose is to destroy. None of these things is defensive, none of these techniques save people. All of them kill and maim.

This is using Satan to drive out Satan. Though we must drive out Satan, though we must defend ourselves, though we must wage defensive wars, we must do so in a Christian way. Our military has embraced Satanic means of waging war, and any soldier engaged in waging war cannot be told otherwise.

Christ follows David by forgiving his enemies and loving them even at risk to himself and his family. (Saul, Absalom). But he goes further as the Son of David, the Christ who would abolish the bow and the sword, who would bring a true and lasting peace built on God’s love rather than man’s folly.

The NT understands that we are in a battle, an epic battle of good vs. evil, a war between God and Satan in which we are foot-soldiers. Christ himself is God’s perfect warrior, and he shows us how to defeat evil. We conquer evil with good, not with evil. That is the Christian revolution, as Pope Benedict’s has said:

“Love of enemy is the nucleus of the Christian revolution . . . Christian nonviolence does not consist in surrendering to evil — as claims a false interpretation of “turn the other cheek” — but in responding to evil with good.”
- Pope Benedict (Angelus 18Feb2007)

If we would deny the dualism which makes monsters out of enemies and dehumanizes them, why should we accept such dualism when it makes monsters out of soldiers and dehumanizes them? That’s the problem. While I agree the first is in error, the second is just as much in error, and indeed, a problem which people like Thich Nhat Hanh saw within the so-called peace movement in the US, demonstrating that the movement was not about peace and engaged in self-contradictory rhetoric suggesting other concerns were behind the movement (fear, hate, etc).

Nate:

You should know not all soldiers are engaged in killing, and not everything in the military is involved with war. NASA, for example, is a military organization and yet the astronauts I would say are (as a whole) heroes beginning a journey that is needed (if humanity is to continue, we need to find a way to live elsewhere in the universe).

However, we must ask ourselves if we are to be Christians:

1) what is the connection betwen Christ and David and why is David seen as the ideal representation of the king in which Christ is to follow?

2) Why does the NT itself use the image of the soldier to represent the Christian life?

This does suggest as I have pointed out, there is something indeed noble in the soldier. This is not a discussion about war, just wars, when war should be/could be engaged; this is a discussion of people and that is where we must remember the discussion is to be: not to turn on the principles of peace by use of abstractions to denigrate people.

Yeah, and sometimes the existence of Daddy’s fist prevents whining children. Violence is the ideology, Blackadder, and I took those blinders off years ago.

This amounts to saying, “Think whatever you want about war; but you must buy into the myth of the noble soldier.” The fact is, no we don’t. That myth is an important piece of the general myth of war. I

Soldiers don’t defend people. They kill people.

Oh, I can already hear the arguments. But the truth bears repeating:

Soldiers don’t defend people. They kill people.

That is not, and never will be, noble.

It would be wise to remember our Lord’s crystal clear words: “all who take the sword will die by the sword.” Defending the innocent by sacrificing our lives is noble. Killing our enemies with swords, guns, tanks, bombs or anything else – that is satanic. God did not make death, and desires no one to die. When we decide that we “have” to kill to defend ourselves, we make a mockery of the resurrection, we defy our faith.