Down South
Once a soldier
Some days ago, while our soldiers valiantly fought it out in close quarters combat after walking into an Abu Sayyaf ambush in Tipo-tipo, Basilan, I was burning the midnight oil perusing the last chapters of Once an Eagle, a 915-page soldier saga by ex-US Marine Anton Myer. Blurb on the front of the paperback says this book is America’s War and Peace.
Confession: I’ve never read War and Peace. I started on the first few chapters of The Brothers Karamasov, but that doesn’t count. Anna Karenina was the name of a girl who was three years ahead of me in the grades.
Okay. I missed out on some really important aspects to my early education.
It’s been said that Once an Eagle is required reading at the US Army War College. If that were the case, it’s a wonder why America is still warmongering. You see, this book opens up the morality of war and examines the justification for it. It is by far the finest argument for the word never to be said past World War II. Of course, you come to realize that around the 882nd page where Sad Sam Damon, most decorated veteran of America’s wars, argues against the advisability of starting one in the Far East.
Ah, well, it’s a long book. Maybe very few who were required to read this ever got to page 882.
It’s a novel. It was written in 1968 when books told the story of the time. Still, the unknowing reader couldn’t help but be sucked into the breadth and grandness of it, wishing she knew more about military history and war geography across Mexico, France, China, the Philippines, Africa and other parts of Asia. Every now and then, the fanciful reader has to stop and remind herself that this is a fictional account with no exact parallels in history books. Forget about tracking down references through the worldwide web and get back to the macabre drama of combat as it unfolds. Still, it’s the almost-but-not-quite that niggles the subconscious like a pestering fly that won’t go away.
Sad Sam. He was good at war. He wouldn’t start one, but he’d end them. And always his objective was to bring back his men alive. Sad Sam never got to do it all the time, but his men would follow him to their death. That’s why he was sad.
Anyone who contemplates studying combat stress and the psychology of death and dying in that context, as I do, would be well advised to read this book. This was written before the age of posttraumatic stress disorders, yet it’s all detailed there. Something tells me my discipline has missed the boat on this one with our myopic insistence on checklists and diagnostic criteria. The best way to understand combat stress is to tease out its narrative, the way Myrer did. Myrer was a combat psychologist before they started giving out the degree for it.
Tipo-tipo had me rushing back to the book- back to the parts where Myrer described close quarters combat. There’s something out of place, out of time about Tipo-tipo. It rarely happens that way these days.
Unless you set out to make it happen.
Ah. That brings to mind ex-Oakwood mutineer, ex-soldier John Andres who refused to make the call to engage his troops. Instead, in the dark, he crept up to the enemy and disarmed him. Poor Andong. He still must be suffering nightmares over that nerve-wracking combat decision that ultimately saved the military the death of soldiers and this government the price of bullets.
Leadership rests heavily on the shoulders of the commanding officer. Andong and people like him who have worn the mantle of honorable leadership in battle have that core of sadness that would never go away even when they smile. They know the stakes – right down to the possibility that that’s where they’ll burn. They would be the last persons to say the word, but they won’t flinch from carrying it out if only to bring back the men alive.
Several days after Tipo-tipo and I’m looking back at this play at a wry smile on the face of a soldier who couldn’t bring his boys back alive all the time. The eyes are sadder than I’ve ever seen them. The quiet question said out loud hangs in the air unanswered. Did we, he asked, do the right thing by sending Chester Barela out there?
A good man’s death is a heavy burden. It’s one the leader carries for the rest of his life.
You see, Barela, like our Andong, was trained by the best. And yet, Barela died. He died along with more than 50 others who fought it out seemingly at pointblank range in Tipo-tipo, Basilan some days back while we quarreled over the price of the President’s dinner, sipping overpriced coffee without a quibble at some glitzy café so very far away. And somewhere in some regimented training camp, some idealistic young man like Chester Barela is seriously getting ready to die with honor in battle.
How do we make this picture right?
(Gail Ilagan is a clinical psychologist on the faculty of the Ateneo de Davao University where she is the editor of both the Tambara University Journal and the Research Journal for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.)