The pernicious effects of war

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Leaders throughout history have always stressed the need for their countrymen to march to war, to defend the nation against the ‘enemy’, to uphold values and to preserve society. War is glorified and praised. Soldiers are honoured and cherished. But what is the experience of a soldier at war? 

Here is a longish extract from ‘Goodbye Darkness’, American historian William Manchester’s memoir of the Pacific War in World War 11, where he describes his killing of a Japanese soldier:

‘My first shot had missed him, embedding itself in the straw wall, but the second caught him dead-on in the femoral artery. 

‘A wave of blood gushed from the wound; then another boiled out, sheeting across his legs, pooling on the earthen floor. Mutely, he looked down at it. He dipped a hand in it and listlessly smeared his cheek red. His shoulders gave a little spasmodic jerk, as though someone had whacked him on the back; then he emitted a tremendous, raspy fart, slumped down, and died. I kept firing, wasting government property. 

‘Almost immediately, a fly landed on his left eyeball. Another joined it. I don’t know how long I stood there staring. I knew from previous combat what lay ahead for the corpse. It would swell, then bloat, bursting out of the uniform. Then the face would turn from yellow to red, to purple, to green, to black. 

‘A feeling of disgust and self-hatred clotted darkly in my throat, gagging me.  

‘Then I began to tremble and next, to shake all over. I sobbed, in a voice, still grainy with fear: “I’m sorry.” Then I threw up all over myself. I recognised the half-digested C-ration beans dribbling down my front, smelled the vomit above the cordite. At the same time, I noticed another odour; I had urinated in my skivvies. I pondered fleetingly why our excretions become so loathsome the instant they leave the body.’   

This extract has been reproduced in the book, ‘War is a force that gives us meaning’ by Chris Hedges, a foreign correspondent for 15 years with the New York Times. He covered conflicts in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans.

His book can change your attitude toward war. It shows what really happens at ground level. Chris’s first-hand description of the war in Bosnia is unforgettable. The unbelievable cruelty and depravity that soldiers displayed was difficult to digest. 

Here is a quote by Chris: “Once we sign on for war’s crusade, once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, once we embrace a theological or ideological belief system that defines itself as the embodiment of goodness and light, it is only a matter of how we will carry out murder.”

One thing that became clear from reading this book is how powerful are the forces of evil that live quietly within each one of us. And when these forces awaken, they thrust you into the heart of darkness. 

The book, published in 2002, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction. And is a must-read as the world heads for a possible nuclear apocalypse because of the Ukraine War. 

Here are some quotes from the book: 

Civil war, brutality, ideological intolerance, conspiracy and murderous repression are part of the human condition. 

Soldiers who kill innocent people pay a tremendous, personal, emotional, and spiritual price. 

The cost of killing is all the more bitter because of the deep disillusionment the war usually brings. 

Killing unleashes within us dark undercurrents that see us desecrate and whip ourselves into greater orgies of destruction. 

The ecstatic high of violence and the debilitating mental and physical destruction that comes with prolonged exposure to war’s addiction. 

We dismantle our moral universe to serve the cause of war. 

In the rise to power, we become smaller, power absorbs us, and once power is attained, we are often its pawns. 

Killing is a sordid affair. Those who are killed die messy, disturbing deaths that often plague the killers. And the bodies of the newly slain retain a disquieting power. 

The eyes of the dead are windows into a world we fear. 

Modern war is directed against civilians. 

Force easily snuffs out gentle people, the compassionate and the decent. 

States at war silence their authentic and humane culture. By destroying authentic culture — that which allows us to question and examine ourselves and our society — the state erodes its moral fibre. A warped sense of reality replaces it. 

Cliches, coined by the state, become the only acceptable vocabulary. Everyone knows what to say and how to respond. It is scripted. Vocabulary shrinks so that the tyranny of nationalistic rhetoric leaves people sputtering state-sanctioned slogans. 

The nationalist myth often implodes with startling ferocity. It does so after the lies and absurdities become too hard to sustain. They collapse under their own weight.

Contradictions and the refusal to acknowledge the obvious become too much for a society to bear. 

 Nationalist cant always end up sounding absurd.