The problem with America in its struggle with terrorism is one we never talk of: our dedication – some would say addiction – to the myths of World War II.
From our colonial wars, our revolution, our wars with Native Americans, our Civil War, our wars of expansion in 1846 and 1898 and our victory in World War I, we inherited war as a path to national identity. Our stunning triumph in World War II gave war its mythical and glorious aspect in our minds.
In spite of the stalemate in the Korean War, the brutal failure of the war in Vietnam and now the quagmire in Iraq – which even its advocates admit is not going well – the myths of that war more than 60 years ago continue to possess us and determine the way we relate to the rest of the world.
Severely wounded at age 19 in that war, I have watched those myths slowly soften its harsh horror. Out of our stunning victory in 1945 we have come to believe in the following myths:
- War is good.
Our defeat of Hitler and Hirohito and the “evil” that their nations inflicted on the world was complete. In that victory, continental America was never in danger of serious attack and its economy exploded, ending the Great Depression of the 1930s. World War II became a “good” to most Americans who never suffered from its horror.
- World War II was fought by the Greatest Generation.
We came to believe that the generation which won the war had a kind of nobility not known to previous or later generations. It defeated that monstrous “evil” that so threatened the world.
- We won World War II largely on our own.
Our literature and our movies seldom acknowledge the contribution of other nations to the victory in 1945. We believe our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines largely won that war without much allied support.
- When evil lies in others, war is the only means to justice.
The shocking discovery of the camps of the Holocaust at the end of that war showed us that absolute evil existed. The failure to halt that barbarity lay in those in Britain and France who appeased Hitler in the 1930s. There must be no appeasement, no mercy shown to enemy civilians or soldiers.
Our faith in these four myths, buried deeply in our collective mind, explains so much of our warlike actions since 1945. They led us into three major wars and five minor ones. They led us to build the most mighty military machine of all history. They led us to maintain a constant posture of war. The slightest twitch in other nations causes us to spring to military action.
And yet these myths are patently false.
The war was never “good.” Some 50 million to 60 million people were killed, probably three times that number wounded and untold millions turned into refugees, their homes, cities, landscapes and monuments destroyed.
My friends and I who were in combat found the phrase “The Greatest Generation” a great embarrassment. We felt that we had done our duty – no more, no less. And we had seen things that made us doubt our goodness. A friend of mine who went across France and Germany with the 4th Division says he watched American soldiers loot and rape their way across Europe. Some 40,000 American troops in Europe had deserted by the end of January 1945. One out of every four casualties in Europe were caused by battle fatigue. We knew that ground combat was simply a place without pity where each soldier had to kill and often did something he would be ashamed of for the rest of his life.
Though the war would not have been won without America’s economic power, we never shared the burden of fighting equally. We had around 1 million killed and wounded. The USSR suffered as many as 13 million deaths in its military alone.
The belief that the appeasement by Britain and France in the 1930s allowed Hitler to succeed avoids the failure of the victors of World War I to reach a just and equitable peace in the 1920s. The Versailles Treaty of 1919 was so filled with revenge and retribution and reparations that it gave Hitler one of his major advantages in political debate: the eradication of that treaty. The League of Nations was never given adequate power to deal with threats of war and America refused to support it. The cause of the rise of Hitler is not simply the appeasement of the 1930s but the failure of the peace the Allies made in the 1920s.
If we had but the courage to examine these four myths of World War II and how they continue to influence our policies in a national debate, we might turn from war as always the “good” solution to conflict. If we did that, we might then take the time to search for the real causes of terrorism. We might admit that “evil” sometimes lies in us as much as our enemy. And doing that might lead us into dialogue, the only real basis for a lasting peace.
If we continue to live by these myths of World War II, we will, sooner or later, turn the entire world against us. Then, someday, we will be faced with an enemy far more powerful than ourselves.
Edward W. Wood, Jr., is a World War II veteran, Denver resident and author of three books, including the upcoming “Worshipping the Myths of World War II”
