"The War," Ken Burns’ seven part, 15-hour series on PBS, has caused a bit of a problem in our house. My wife doesn’t want to watch it. She "hates" war and even though we both lived through World War II, she doesn’t want to spend her evenings living through it again. Once was enough. She has a point. And so we compromised. I’ve been recording it and I watch it myself in the afternoons while she’s reading a book or in the late evenings when, as she usually does, she has fallen asleep on the couch.
Frankly, I’ve been watching with mixed emotions myself. Just because he uncovered a lot of "never seen before footage" doesn’t mean we have to see it all. I could have settled for fewer scenes of dead bodies strewn on the beaches and battlefields. But, perhaps, Ken Burns felt that current generations, many of whom have no idea what the war was even about, don’t realize how devastating and total it was; more than 400,000 Americans killed in action, somewhere between 50 and 70-million people, including innocent civilians, dead worldwide.
In his epic series, Ken Burns calls World War II "a necessary war." Some see that as an implication that he considers Iraq an "unnecessary war." According to the polls, an increasing number of Americans would agree with that comment. However, be that as it may, it might have been more accurate to describe World War II as "the last real war" because it was the last war officially declared by the United States.
In "The War" there is a scene where a woman in a small American hometown talks about how in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor "everyone gathered around their radios to hear President Roosevelt declare war." Of course, that’s not exactly right. President Roosevelt never declared war on anybody, although I have read a lot of history books and historical novels, which make the same mistake. America did listen to President Roosevelt’s famous "a day that will live in infamy" speech but it was delivered to Congress, which he asked to recognize that since the attack on Pearl Harbor "a state of war has existed" between the United States and Japan. Congress responded by voting to officially declare war on Japan. As for Germany, among Hitler’s many mistakes was his decision to come to the aid of Japan by declaring war on the United States, which naturally resulted in Congress responding with its own declaration of war against Germany.
The Constitution makes it clear that "the Congress shall have the power to declare war" but no Congress since World War II has used that power. Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq have all been implemented by Executive action justified, sometimes questionably, by Congressional resolutions, not declarations of war.
"The War" – whether that was Ken Burns’ intent or not – dramatizes the difference between that conflict and what is going on in America today. What Ken Burns tells is really two stories. One is of warfare itself, the battles in Africa, Europe and the Pacific. That is the one that, as a veteran, I am most familiar with. The other, and generally less told story, is the one concerning the home front. While 16-million Americans eventually served in the Armed Forces everyone back home was also mobilized. Banners with blue stars hung in the window of every home from which an eligible male had left to serve and too many gold stars eventually began to replace the blue stars on those banners.
Some women served in the Armed Forces’ auxiliaries – the WACs, WAVES and SPARS – and many others, like my wife who worked for Bendix Aviation in Englewood, filled jobs in defense industries. Children conducted scrap metal drives. People planted "Victory Gardens." Detroit ceased the manufacture of automobiles and industries everywhere turned to the production of tanks, airplanes, ships and guns instead of consumer goods. Meat, sugar and gasoline and tires were rationed and "War Bond" rallies held nationwide helped raise money to finance the all-out effort. America’s involvement in World War II was total. To compare World War II, which was forced upon us, with Iraq, which was a "war of choice," is ridiculous; as ridiculous as it is to compare Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Hitler.
George Bush likes to depict us as "a nation at war," probably in the hope that history will see him as a "wartime president." But, of course, we’re not at war. As a strict Constitutionalist he should know that he has no more right to unilaterally take this nation into war without an official Congressional declaration than did Franklin Roosevelt. Now that our military involvement in Iraq has lasted longer than World War II maybe it’s time he asked Congress for that declaration. Either that or let’s get out and turn the mess we made over to the United Nations or to the Iraqis themselves.
