Sunday, May 25, 2008
For Memorial Day, Four Poems
GRASS
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Carl Sandberg
CHAMPS D'HONNEUR
Soldiers never do die well;
Crosses mark the places--
Wooden crosses where they fell,
Stuck above their faces,
Soldiers pitch and cough and twitch--
All the world roars red and black;
Soldiers smother in a ditch,
Choking through the whole attack.
Ernest Hemingway
Paris, 1923
THE FIGHTING RACE
"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back,
And Kelly drooped his head.
While Shea--they call him Scholar Jack--
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal passers--all.
Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe,
Said Burke in an offhand way:
"We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe!
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain,"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
"Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble," said Burke.
"Wherever fighting's the game,
Or a spice of danger in grown man's work,"
Said Kelly, "you'll find my name."
"And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad,
"When it's touch and go for life?"
Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, bedad,
Since I charged to drum and fife
Up Marye's Heights and my old canteen
Stopped a rebel ball on its way.
There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green--
Kelly and Burke and Shea--
And the dead didn't brag," "Well, here's to the flag!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
"I wish't was in Ireland, for there's the place,"
Said Burke, "that we'd die for by right,
In the cradle of our soldier race,
After one good stand-up fight.
My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not in his trade;
But his rusty pike's in the cabin still,
With Hessian blood on the blade."
"Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great
When the word was 'clear the way!'
We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight--
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy,
Said, "We were at Ramillies;
We left our bones at Fontenoy
And up in the Pyrenees;
Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain,
Cremona, Lille, and Ghent,
We're all over Austria, France, and Spain,
Wherever they pitched a tent.
We've died for England from Waterloo
To Egypt and Dargai;
And still there's enough for a corps or crew,
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
"Oh, the fighting races don't die out,
If they seldom die in bed,
For love is first in their hearts, no doubt,"
Said Burke; then Kelly said:
"When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands,
The angel with the sword,
And the battle-dead from a hundred lands
Are ranged in one big horde,
Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits,
Will stretch three deep that day,
From Jehoshaphat to the Golden Gates--
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, there's thank God for the race and the sod!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.
Joseph Ignatius Constantine Clarke
ANGELS OF BATANN
To the Nurses of Bataan.
Funny looking angels, in their blood-stained rumpled coveralls.
Funny looking angels, with their patient weary eyes.
And you know I don't mean "funny" . . . Godamighty! They are lovelier
Than any laundered angels twanging harps in Paradise.
War is not a pretty business . . . it is Hell and stench and agony.
They're not nurses in the movies . . . "cool pale hands on fevered brows"
It is bathing shattered bodies, antiseptics, anaesthesias;
It is constant grinding vigil, watchful eyes that dare not drowse.
There is laughter . . . they provide it . . . like a soothing hypodermic
When they want to scream with tension or to black-out with a faint.
They are soldiers, Man, what soldiers! Take your hats off, Folks, salute them.
They are human. They are women. And they rate the name of saint.
We went through the Hell together, fighting . . . all of us were fighting.
We with rifles, knives and bullets; they with bandages and blood,
In the open, unprotected; getting just the same as we got,
And they didn't ask for favors in that rotten muck and mud.
When they're handing out the medals, building monuments and arches,
When they tell heroic stories of the ones who carried on . . .
Let them carve in golden letters that undying splendid story
Of the service and the glory of the Angels of Bataan.
Don Blanding
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
If amateurs discuss strategy and professionals discuss logistics, what do presidential candidates say about national security strategy?
A recurring theme in the ongoing national dialogue over the war on terror and the related conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is the plaint that the U.S. has no stated and broadly accepted national strategy such as the Cold War era strategy of containment. This does not mean that we do not have a strategy for Iraq and a strategy for Afghanistan, or a strategy for the war on terror, because you can actually find and read these over the Internet as well as in print. The U.S. has no strategy that defines where in the world we as a nation are now, where we would like to be, how we expect to get there, and what kind of world we expect to find when we arrive there.
A major purpose behind the existence of any government is to manage change on behalf of the population that supports that government. Without a strategy or even with a strategy that is ill-thought out and unsupported, governments easily find themselves dealing with the crisis of the day with no idea of how that crisis relates to or reflects the ongoing, anticipated, and yet-to-be imagined changes confronting it. This is sometimes called “putting out the fire in the in-box” school of government.
Presidential election years are the moment when questions of national strategy and its long-term implication should be asked. Candidates for high office – whether the Presidency or a House or Senate seat – should be challenged to clearly and simply state what world they foresee for the United States and how they intend to lead the United States to achieve that world. The Cold War years of nuclear confrontation saw far too many people opt out of debates over strategy, leaving it to be debated, decided, and implemented by those political figures interested or forced to be interested, alongside a coterie of too often self-selected experts hoping to be recognized as the nation’s new “Wise Men.”
At university, one of my classes debated how or even whether a democratic political system could publicly debate and decide questions of foreign policy and national strategy. The hypothesis was that since democracy thrives on open debate but foreign or national security policy is most effective when surrounded by a degree of secrecy, discretion, and even ambiguity, there cannot be an effective open popular debate of such matters. Another argument raised against public debate was that questions of strategy were too intricate, complex, and even arcane to expect any meaningful contribution from the general public or anyone not an educated expert in the field.
In its simplest meaning, a strategy is a plan for achieving a desired goal using the resources you have available. Anyone who has and prepared a plan to achieve a goal – whether to increase sales or to win a sports match – has prepared a strategy. However, you do not really even need these experiences or qualifications for this needed debate. The contribution to this debate that is needed from you is a clear statement as to where you want the United States to be in the world and what kind of world you want that to be for you, for your children, your grandchildren, and so on. The challenge facing the United States today, as the sole surviving superpower, is what do we do with that power, understanding how our use of that power impacts the world today and tomorrow.
As in the days immediately after the end of the Cold War, two extreme choices frame that range of possible worlds:
– The U.S. actively uses its power to direct world affairs, deploying its influence and even its military forces to forcibly shape a world under which nothing is allowed to happen unless the U.S. is agreeable; or,
– The U.S. uses its power and influence to create and support international organizations, coalitions, agreements, and other mechanisms through which the U.S. and other countries together respond to crises and resolve conflicts while sharing the responsibilities and the burdens of making these efforts.
The first possibility risks ever increasing resistance to our exercise of power, leading to our having to use ever greater and more costly levels of force to achieve our desired goals. The second possibility raises the risk that the U.S. will not always achieve exactly the outcome it desires, that responses to crises may come more slowly than we desire, and that others will criticize U.S. policies and the behavior of U.S. forces when they fall short of the standards the U.S. expects other countries to meet.
What you need to do is decide where within the spectrum defined by these two extremes you wish the United States to be, make that desired goal clear to the numerous political candidates, and then ask them to explain whether they share that goal and how they expect to achieve it – how will they work in office to reach that goal.
“My general strategy at present is to last out the next three months.” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Soviet Ambassador, August 1940
“The more I reflect on the experience of history the more I come to see the instability of solutions achieved by force, and to suspect even those instances where force has had the appearance of resolving the difficulties.” B. H. Liddell Hart, “Thoughts on War,” 1944
A major purpose behind the existence of any government is to manage change on behalf of the population that supports that government. Without a strategy or even with a strategy that is ill-thought out and unsupported, governments easily find themselves dealing with the crisis of the day with no idea of how that crisis relates to or reflects the ongoing, anticipated, and yet-to-be imagined changes confronting it. This is sometimes called “putting out the fire in the in-box” school of government.
Presidential election years are the moment when questions of national strategy and its long-term implication should be asked. Candidates for high office – whether the Presidency or a House or Senate seat – should be challenged to clearly and simply state what world they foresee for the United States and how they intend to lead the United States to achieve that world. The Cold War years of nuclear confrontation saw far too many people opt out of debates over strategy, leaving it to be debated, decided, and implemented by those political figures interested or forced to be interested, alongside a coterie of too often self-selected experts hoping to be recognized as the nation’s new “Wise Men.”
At university, one of my classes debated how or even whether a democratic political system could publicly debate and decide questions of foreign policy and national strategy. The hypothesis was that since democracy thrives on open debate but foreign or national security policy is most effective when surrounded by a degree of secrecy, discretion, and even ambiguity, there cannot be an effective open popular debate of such matters. Another argument raised against public debate was that questions of strategy were too intricate, complex, and even arcane to expect any meaningful contribution from the general public or anyone not an educated expert in the field.
In its simplest meaning, a strategy is a plan for achieving a desired goal using the resources you have available. Anyone who has and prepared a plan to achieve a goal – whether to increase sales or to win a sports match – has prepared a strategy. However, you do not really even need these experiences or qualifications for this needed debate. The contribution to this debate that is needed from you is a clear statement as to where you want the United States to be in the world and what kind of world you want that to be for you, for your children, your grandchildren, and so on. The challenge facing the United States today, as the sole surviving superpower, is what do we do with that power, understanding how our use of that power impacts the world today and tomorrow.
As in the days immediately after the end of the Cold War, two extreme choices frame that range of possible worlds:
– The U.S. actively uses its power to direct world affairs, deploying its influence and even its military forces to forcibly shape a world under which nothing is allowed to happen unless the U.S. is agreeable; or,
– The U.S. uses its power and influence to create and support international organizations, coalitions, agreements, and other mechanisms through which the U.S. and other countries together respond to crises and resolve conflicts while sharing the responsibilities and the burdens of making these efforts.
The first possibility risks ever increasing resistance to our exercise of power, leading to our having to use ever greater and more costly levels of force to achieve our desired goals. The second possibility raises the risk that the U.S. will not always achieve exactly the outcome it desires, that responses to crises may come more slowly than we desire, and that others will criticize U.S. policies and the behavior of U.S. forces when they fall short of the standards the U.S. expects other countries to meet.
What you need to do is decide where within the spectrum defined by these two extremes you wish the United States to be, make that desired goal clear to the numerous political candidates, and then ask them to explain whether they share that goal and how they expect to achieve it – how will they work in office to reach that goal.
“My general strategy at present is to last out the next three months.” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Soviet Ambassador, August 1940
“The more I reflect on the experience of history the more I come to see the instability of solutions achieved by force, and to suspect even those instances where force has had the appearance of resolving the difficulties.” B. H. Liddell Hart, “Thoughts on War,” 1944
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Which is the mightiest - pen, sword, or gospel?
The study of history offers many rewards, but sometimes it’s the unexpected discoveries that are the most interesting – the individual stories that are often overshadowed by the grand scale of events as we look back. It is also sometimes surprising to see how individuals in the past lived within a different frame of reference or with different expectations, for example, of how a journalist or a military chaplain should behave.
I recently began researching the story of Arthur B. Fuller, whose name appears on the Freedom Forum’s Journalists Memorial at the Newseum (Museum of News) in Washington, DC, as a special correspondent for The Boston Journal killed during the Battle of Fredericksburg. He is one of eight journalists reportedly killed or reported to have died while covering the war for newspapers in the south or the north. Finding his name associated with both the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Boston Journal was a surprise because I have spent much of my time researching both the battle and another Boston Journal correspondent, Charles Carleton Coffin, and yet I did not remember reading about the death of any of fellow journalist. Fortunately, in world of the Internet, I was able to quickly confirm that an Arthur B. Fuller had been a special correspondent during the war and was killed at Fredericksburg, but the story still offered some surprises.
Arthur Buckminster Fuller was born on August 10, 1822 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, Timothy Fuller, was elected to Congress from 1817 to 1825, where he served as Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. Congressman Fuller was described as frank and vigorous, a defender of the Seminole Indians against the federal authorities, and an opponent of the Missouri Compromise. Despite financial obstacles following the death of his father in 1835, Arthur was able to attend Harvard College and graduated in 1843. He then used his remaining few hundred dollars to purchase a small academy in Belvidere, Illinois and embarked upon teaching as a full time career. However, during the following two years, Fuller found his interest and energies increasingly drawn to the Sunday school he taught there and his related preaching. As a result, he returned to Harvard’s Divinity School from which he graduated in 1847.
The new Unitarian minister proceeded to pursue his religious vocation over the following years, filling several pulpits in succession and acting as chaplain for the branches of the state legislature. At the same time he served as editor of his sister Margaret’s writings preparing them for successful publication. He also acted upon his interest in education, serving on various school boards, and was active in support of anti-slavery reforms. These endeavors came to an end with the secession of the southern states and the expected onset of a war between North and South.
Reverend Arthur B. Fuller became the Chaplain of the newly raised 16th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers on August 1, 1861, a regiment primarily representative of his own Middlesex County. The regiment left Boston on August 17, 1861. While on service, Reverend Fuller was ever attentive to his men, holding weekly Sunday School classes and services as well twice-daily prayer meetings during the rest of the week in his “chapel-tent.” He distributed Bibles, religious volumes, and songbooks that included both religious and patriotic musical selections through the regiment. As did many chaplains throughout the Union Army, Reverend Fuller offered educational classes to the soldiers. Consistent with his religious views, he formed a Division of the Sons of Temperance within the regiment, bringing together more than one hundred officers and men who would continue to hold weekly meetings. Finally, following a tradition already more than a hundred years old in Europe and now the United States, Reverend Fuller regularly reported by letter to various newspapers on the events of the war. His letters were featured in a number of newspapers including the Boston Journal, Boston Traveller, New York Tribune, and Christian Inquirer. His most famous report was a graphic account of the battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack).
Unfortunately, upon his enlistment Arthur Fuller was already almost 40 years old and he found that even for chaplain, army service was a young man’s work. His health soon began to fail him and he was several times forced to remain behind as his regiment went to the field. On December 10, 1862, he received an honorable discharge from this service with a surgeon’s certificate of disability, and with the promise of a commission as chaplain for a hospital or stationary camp. However, on the day following his discharge, December 11, while he was still with the army, the call came around for volunteers to cross the Rappahannock River and drive off the Confederate sharpshooters who were preventing Union army engineers from completing their bridge across the river to Fredericksburg. Despite having been discharged the day before and his lack of training as a soldier, Arthur Fuller stepped forward and armed himself with a borrowed musket and accoutrements.
We have an eyewitness account of what happened in the town from Captain Moncena Dunn of the 19th Massachusetts Volunteers who commanded some 25 volunteers out of the force that crossed the river, including Chaplain Fuller. While not previously acquainted, Captain Dunn recorded that he had heard of Chaplain Fuller’s work in the 16th Regiment and had hoped to meet him. However, their first acquaintance would come in the streets of Fredericksburg, at Carolina Street at about half past three in the afternoon as Captain Dunn commanded his line of skirmishers. It was at this point that Chaplain Fuller approached, saluted, and said to him, “Captain, I must do something for my country. What shall I do?” Captain Dunn replied that there was no time like the present and that he should take his place on the captain’s left. He described Reverend Fuller as being “perfectly cool and collected” and anticipated that he anticipated good service from the chaplain.
The Captain’s account went on, “His position was directly in front of a grocery store. He fell in five minutes after he took it, having fired once or twice. He was killed instantly, and did not move after he fell. I saw the flash of the rifle which did the deed. I think the Chaplain fell from the ball which entered the hip. He might not have been aware of the wound from the ball entering his arm, sometimes soldiers are not conscious of wounds in battle, or he may have been simultaneously hit by another rifle. We were in a very exposed position. Shortly before the Chaplain came up, one of General Burnside’s aids accosted me, expressing surprise, and saying, ‘What are you doing here, Captain?’ I replied that I had orders. He said that I must retire, if the Rebels pressed us too hard. In about half an hour I had definite orders to retire, and accordingly fell back, leaving the Chaplain and another man dead, and also a wounded man, who was unwilling to be moved. It is not usual, under such pressing circumstances, to attempt to remove the dead. In about an hour afterward, my regiment advanced in line with the Twentieth Massachusetts. They occupied the place where Chaplain Fuller fell; and they suffered very severely, it being much exposed. The Chaplain’s body we found had been robbed, and the wounded man bayoneted by the Rebel Vandals, while the ground was left to them.”
Arthur B Fuller’s remains were sent home to Massachusetts at the earliest opportunity. Later in December 1862, private funeral services were held in his brother’s house in Boston, and then on December 24, a heavily attended and reported public funeral took place at the First Church, Chauncey Street, Boston. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge. The Massachusetts State Adjutant General would record his death as having taken place on December 12, 1862 in Fredericksburg, possibly reflecting the date of removal of his remains from the field. Later that same month, the United States Congress would vote a special bill to award Mrs. Fuller the pension otherwise denied her on the grounds of her late husbands' December 10 discharge.
"There is no conceivable human action which custom has not at one time justified and at another time condemned." -- Joseph Wood Krutch
I recently began researching the story of Arthur B. Fuller, whose name appears on the Freedom Forum’s Journalists Memorial at the Newseum (Museum of News) in Washington, DC, as a special correspondent for The Boston Journal killed during the Battle of Fredericksburg. He is one of eight journalists reportedly killed or reported to have died while covering the war for newspapers in the south or the north. Finding his name associated with both the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Boston Journal was a surprise because I have spent much of my time researching both the battle and another Boston Journal correspondent, Charles Carleton Coffin, and yet I did not remember reading about the death of any of fellow journalist. Fortunately, in world of the Internet, I was able to quickly confirm that an Arthur B. Fuller had been a special correspondent during the war and was killed at Fredericksburg, but the story still offered some surprises.
Arthur Buckminster Fuller was born on August 10, 1822 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, Timothy Fuller, was elected to Congress from 1817 to 1825, where he served as Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. Congressman Fuller was described as frank and vigorous, a defender of the Seminole Indians against the federal authorities, and an opponent of the Missouri Compromise. Despite financial obstacles following the death of his father in 1835, Arthur was able to attend Harvard College and graduated in 1843. He then used his remaining few hundred dollars to purchase a small academy in Belvidere, Illinois and embarked upon teaching as a full time career. However, during the following two years, Fuller found his interest and energies increasingly drawn to the Sunday school he taught there and his related preaching. As a result, he returned to Harvard’s Divinity School from which he graduated in 1847.
The new Unitarian minister proceeded to pursue his religious vocation over the following years, filling several pulpits in succession and acting as chaplain for the branches of the state legislature. At the same time he served as editor of his sister Margaret’s writings preparing them for successful publication. He also acted upon his interest in education, serving on various school boards, and was active in support of anti-slavery reforms. These endeavors came to an end with the secession of the southern states and the expected onset of a war between North and South.
Reverend Arthur B. Fuller became the Chaplain of the newly raised 16th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers on August 1, 1861, a regiment primarily representative of his own Middlesex County. The regiment left Boston on August 17, 1861. While on service, Reverend Fuller was ever attentive to his men, holding weekly Sunday School classes and services as well twice-daily prayer meetings during the rest of the week in his “chapel-tent.” He distributed Bibles, religious volumes, and songbooks that included both religious and patriotic musical selections through the regiment. As did many chaplains throughout the Union Army, Reverend Fuller offered educational classes to the soldiers. Consistent with his religious views, he formed a Division of the Sons of Temperance within the regiment, bringing together more than one hundred officers and men who would continue to hold weekly meetings. Finally, following a tradition already more than a hundred years old in Europe and now the United States, Reverend Fuller regularly reported by letter to various newspapers on the events of the war. His letters were featured in a number of newspapers including the Boston Journal, Boston Traveller, New York Tribune, and Christian Inquirer. His most famous report was a graphic account of the battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack).
Unfortunately, upon his enlistment Arthur Fuller was already almost 40 years old and he found that even for chaplain, army service was a young man’s work. His health soon began to fail him and he was several times forced to remain behind as his regiment went to the field. On December 10, 1862, he received an honorable discharge from this service with a surgeon’s certificate of disability, and with the promise of a commission as chaplain for a hospital or stationary camp. However, on the day following his discharge, December 11, while he was still with the army, the call came around for volunteers to cross the Rappahannock River and drive off the Confederate sharpshooters who were preventing Union army engineers from completing their bridge across the river to Fredericksburg. Despite having been discharged the day before and his lack of training as a soldier, Arthur Fuller stepped forward and armed himself with a borrowed musket and accoutrements.
We have an eyewitness account of what happened in the town from Captain Moncena Dunn of the 19th Massachusetts Volunteers who commanded some 25 volunteers out of the force that crossed the river, including Chaplain Fuller. While not previously acquainted, Captain Dunn recorded that he had heard of Chaplain Fuller’s work in the 16th Regiment and had hoped to meet him. However, their first acquaintance would come in the streets of Fredericksburg, at Carolina Street at about half past three in the afternoon as Captain Dunn commanded his line of skirmishers. It was at this point that Chaplain Fuller approached, saluted, and said to him, “Captain, I must do something for my country. What shall I do?” Captain Dunn replied that there was no time like the present and that he should take his place on the captain’s left. He described Reverend Fuller as being “perfectly cool and collected” and anticipated that he anticipated good service from the chaplain.
The Captain’s account went on, “His position was directly in front of a grocery store. He fell in five minutes after he took it, having fired once or twice. He was killed instantly, and did not move after he fell. I saw the flash of the rifle which did the deed. I think the Chaplain fell from the ball which entered the hip. He might not have been aware of the wound from the ball entering his arm, sometimes soldiers are not conscious of wounds in battle, or he may have been simultaneously hit by another rifle. We were in a very exposed position. Shortly before the Chaplain came up, one of General Burnside’s aids accosted me, expressing surprise, and saying, ‘What are you doing here, Captain?’ I replied that I had orders. He said that I must retire, if the Rebels pressed us too hard. In about half an hour I had definite orders to retire, and accordingly fell back, leaving the Chaplain and another man dead, and also a wounded man, who was unwilling to be moved. It is not usual, under such pressing circumstances, to attempt to remove the dead. In about an hour afterward, my regiment advanced in line with the Twentieth Massachusetts. They occupied the place where Chaplain Fuller fell; and they suffered very severely, it being much exposed. The Chaplain’s body we found had been robbed, and the wounded man bayoneted by the Rebel Vandals, while the ground was left to them.”
Arthur B Fuller’s remains were sent home to Massachusetts at the earliest opportunity. Later in December 1862, private funeral services were held in his brother’s house in Boston, and then on December 24, a heavily attended and reported public funeral took place at the First Church, Chauncey Street, Boston. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge. The Massachusetts State Adjutant General would record his death as having taken place on December 12, 1862 in Fredericksburg, possibly reflecting the date of removal of his remains from the field. Later that same month, the United States Congress would vote a special bill to award Mrs. Fuller the pension otherwise denied her on the grounds of her late husbands' December 10 discharge.
"There is no conceivable human action which custom has not at one time justified and at another time condemned." -- Joseph Wood Krutch
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