the human cost of supporting the troops

I was watching part of a series one evening on the weapons of modern warfare. This particular episode focused on anti-tank weapons used by the United States during the first Gulf War. At one point the show took a dark turn. The scene was the video footage from a helicopter as it took out Iraqi tanks one by one. The image on the screen was the classic “night vision” shot, showing us the same view that the pilot saw, complete with green lines, numbers, and arrows as he fired shot after shot at enemy tanks. On the horizon little black silhouettes of Iraqi tanks blew up one by one. The image was more like a video game, sanitizing the viewer from the horrific death and destruction going on inside of each steel chamber as they were turned into desert kilns.

The video footage also happened to include the audio transmissions of the pilot who was doing the shooting. As he scored a direct hit on each tank, he shouted out his victory chants: “Die mother-f*****!” “Got you, you f****** bastard!” “Go to hell, f******!”

Suddenly his declarations were cut short by someone shouting over the radio to “cease fire!” In the midst of the fireballs of his success against the Iraqi forces, he had just blown up a U.S. tank.

There was a long pause. No more missiles screamed across the black and green screen. Then someone who had not heard about the “friendly-fire” shot radioed in and wanted to know why he had stopped firing. In a stunned and sobbing voice he barked “Shut up! I think I just killed a human being!”

I recently thought of that story again when, at the wedding in Jordan, one of my cousins shared his story with me of his time in the Iraqi Army as a technician working on tanks during that first Gulf War. Every day they were bombed and shot at. “The B-52s… those were the worst. We were sitting ducks,” he remembered. It is a miracle he survived.

My cousin has a wife. He has three sons. He is a husband, a father, a brother, and a son. That night at the wedding, as we smoked cigars and danced, we laughed, we hugged, and we shared serious moments. We remembered shared stories, talked about the joys and difficulties of family and jobs, lamented losses, celebrated new beginnings, dreamed for the future. In other words, we were human beings.

Ironically, he is also an engineer. And until recently he was working in the Green Zone in Baghdad as a contractor with the U.S. Defense Department. As he put it, “I am now working for the very same people who once tried to kill me.”

Not too many weeks after I was with my cousin, my aunt on my mother’s side called. “I know you can related to this,” she said. “My cousin was killed in Iraq this week.” His helicopter had been shot down, and all aboard were killed. The event, and his picture, made the cover of Newsweek. He also had a wife. And a son. He was also a husband, a father, and a son. He had a degree, a job, and shared in the sorrows and joys of a past and a future. In other words, he was a human being.


This next Thanksgiving, when we all gather at the farm for food and fellowship, the horror of war will have finally reached both sides of my family.

There is a lot of debate today about supporting the troops. I have asked this before, and I continue to ask it again and again: What does that mean? I don’t have the luxury of raising one flag in my front yard and declaring that the men and women of that uniform are fighting for me. I cannot side with a uniform, a flag or a country. I can only side with humanity. So for me, to support the troops means to support human beings.

Like many others, I have grown tired of the idea that to “support the troops” one has to support the war. This has never been true. To support the troops means we have to look critically at the reasons they have been sent into battle, to be honest with the families and the country about their mission, to give them the tools and support they need when they go and when they come home, and above all else to do everything possible to make sure that a shot never has to be fired.

In every one of these aspects we have failed.

On the day we learned of the downed helicopter, one of my cousins on my mother’s side wrote me and said “respect is due.” He was right. Respect is due, and I give it. I give respect to human life. I give respect to an idea of supporting the troops that says that no human being, regardless of country, has to die because of lies, incompetence, and unjust wars.

The truth is that the Iraqis in those tanks were human beings, and did not have to die. The truth is that those Americans in that helicopter were human beings, and did not have to die.

I support the troops. I support humanity.