Why we fight

I was raised in a progressive family by a pacifist father. He was a Congregational (United Church of Christ) minister, so I was exposed to progressive ideas including pacifism for the first twenty years of my life.

I’m sure he was disappointed when I joined the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the US Air Force that assists with air search and rescue missions. I learned to march and drill, and I learned how to teach drill to high school students. Our squadron invited two active duty Marines to teach us, and we learned a lot from them.

When I was assigned a draft lottery number of 4, I knew I would have to resolve the dichotomy facing me. On the one hand, I enjoyed the camaraderie of the Civil Air Patrol training and missions, but I also was opposed to the Vietnam War, and the politics that led to it.

I’ll leave the resolution of that internal conflict to another story, but I wanted to provide my background for the great conflict surrounding us now. While I didn’t go into the service, I paid attention to the stories of many veterans explaining why they did go, and fought at the risk of their lives.

I respected the men who fought, and I knew every one of them had a story to tell about why they fought.

The summary of the reasons is that they didn’t fight for their country or their neighborhoods, or even their loved ones; they fought for the other soldiers standing beside them. Of course, this is nothing new. That’s what military training is all about and has been since antiquity.

Moving to the present day, I see the heartbreaking pictures of medical personnel standing cheek byjowl around Covad-19 patients, in compromised circumstances and protective equipment. I read about their fear of dying or, worse yet, infecting their families.

And they are dying. My wife is a retired medical provider whose health precludes her taking any risks at this point, but I know the pictures and stories torture her as well.

It might not occur to you ask why they fight. After all, it’s their job. It’s what they signed up for. It’s why they get paid the big bucks. We sometimes succumb to the apparent nobility of the medical profession and think they are doing it for some noble purpose.

In case you hadn’t heard it from other sources, I will point out why those medical personnel, doctors, nurses, medical assistants, etc., don’t just call in sick or quit. They fight for all the other medical people around them. They know if they don’t show up, the burden of life and death will fall on fewer shoulders, and it might fall hard on the person they worked with yesterday.

Just as in a war, the bonds of combat don’t have to be impressed by any higher authority. For a soldier fighting a war or a nurse fighting a virus, the highest moral authority is the soldier and the nurse. In a crisis, they will do the right thing because any other choice means that loved ones die.

I cry when I see and hear about scenes in New York City hospitals, where the worst fighting is taking place right now.

I’m an old man, and all I can contribute is my Meals on Wheels deliveries to another vulnerable population, knowing that the fight in NYC will be repeated in cities around the country just as it is being fought in China, Italy, and other countries.