Why disillusion heroes?

In a (Sunday-after-Thanksgiving) front page headline, the Philadelphia Inquirer is claiming that Army Spec. John Kulick (who was killed last August) was "A war supporter disillusioned in Iraq."

Expecting to find some evidence that Kulick had in fact been disillusioned, I read through this huge piece, only to discover that while he had expressed various concerns about various things at various times, the appellation "disillusioned" originates not with Kulick but with his mother, and that five days before his death, Kulick wrote that "the war was justified"":

"I think his greatest disappointment in the Army was the way that the soldiers were treated," Jill Kulick said. "John had the same concerns that we all have here, and that is the fact that it doesn't look like we've really accomplished a lot in the improvement of the Iraqi people's lives and in eliminating terrorist activity."

His mom described him as "disillusioned" by a sense of helplessness.

To others, he indicated a continuing support for the mission.

"I think that the world is a much better place without Saddam," he wrote on Aug. 4 to Michael Tremoglie, a Whitpain resident who corresponded with Kulick. "Someone needs to be the Police in this world and the only superpower is us. The 1800 soldiers did not die in vain, and the war was justified. It's sad but I think the American people forget their feelings they had after 911."

The word "disillusioned" is his mom's interpretation of things he said, and tragically, now that the guy is dead, their interpretation is all that's left. Reading his August 4 remarks, couldn't it also be asserted that he was disillusioned about the American people for forgetting 9/11?

Clearly his parents are disillusioned -- and they're also described as attending a Cindy Sheehan event:

His father, once a war booster and Bush supporter, turned against both.

His brother maintained for weeks that he would join the military - to avenge Kulick's death. Eventually, he backed down.

"Life was pretty simple, and I knew where I stood on everything," Jim Kulick Jr., of Doylestown, said. "Now it has been turned upside down. Someone blew my brother up, in a foreign land. It's not normal."

They felt desperate - for answers, emotional stability, relief. And they were willing to try anything.

So one month after their 35-year-old son's death, John's parents ended up where they least expected: at a Germantown interfaith service organized by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and her Bring Them Home Now Tour.

Look, these folks are grieving, and they have every right to be against the war and attend Cindy Sheehan events. I don't think that's what their son would have wanted, and I can't shake this feeling that he wouldn't have enjoyed reading about his mom's immediate reaction to his death:
....Kulick's mom got the news from an officer at the other end of a telephone line.

In shock, she threw the phone across the living room and ran toward the beach, ripping a "Support Our Troops" bracelet from her wrist. She buried it in the sand.

I can't speak for Kulick, but I'd hate to lose my life for a cause I believed in (and said so just days before my death), and then have my family and the Philadelphia Inquirer claim I was "disillusioned." (If that happened, then I'd be disillusioned about my family.)

I think this is demoralizing, and I think it degrades the cause for which John Kulick died, and in which he said he believed just days before his death.

No wonder soldiers (like Special Forces Capt. Jeffrey P. Toczylowski) are writing things like this in advance of their deaths:

Don't ever think that you are defending me by slamming the Global War on Terrorism or the US goals in that war. As far as I am concerned, we can send guys like me to go after them or we can wait for them to come back to us again. I died doing something I believed in and have no regrets except that I couldn't do more.
If there's one thing I've learned blogging, it's that people who disagree with you will put words in your mouth. But at least if you're alive, you can speak up.

Who gets to speak up if you're dead?

I certainly can't speak for John Kulick, but I have to ask a question: wouldn't he have preferred being seen as a hero?

I'm probably old fashioned, but I just never saw disillusionment as a particularly heroic trait.

(Maybe times have changed.)


MORE: If there's a generation gap, this quote from Midge Decter might be instructive:

“But I remind myself, on the other hand, that there are those kids in Iraq, who are reintroducing into the public consciousness the virtues of bravery and determination and love of country so long forgotten by a people grown stale in its blessings and privileges. May their tribe increase.”
(Via Glenn Reynolds.) Perhaps I'm new fashioned. Anyway, I don't think the anti-Vietnam left has the right to speak for an entire generation.

MORE: What worries me is that if the United States withdraws from Iraq, and the democratic government then fails, the anti-Vietnam left will spin the war as another American defeat, and they'll never stop screaming "WE TOLD YOU SO!"

Is that why they want the U.S. to lose the war?

So they can falsely claim they were right, that war is wrong, and that the U.S. was rightly "defeated"?

UPDATE: Thank you, Glenn Reynolds, for linking this post! I'm not much of a serious war blogger, (although I know bias when I see it), so it's flattering and unexpected to get InstaLanched in the discussion of Marc "Armed Liberal" Danziger's Winds of Change post about gratuitous, smug, antiwar bias in the L.A. Times.

"Reverse-Vietnam" is a good way to describe what's happening. (The term even sounds prescient, if I may be so optimistic.)

posted by Eric on 11.27.05 at 08:39 AM





TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/3068






Comments

Is that why they want the U.S. to lose the war?

So they can falsely claim they were right, that war is wrong, and that the U.S. was rightly "defeated"?

It worked for them the first time around; I see no reason to doubt that the Anti-Vietnam Left thinks it can profit from the same thing in this war.

Scott Crawford   ·  November 27, 2005 02:18 PM

You're probably right, unfortunately.

Eric Scheie   ·  November 27, 2005 05:25 PM

So they can falsely claim they were right, that war is wrong, and that the U.S. was rightly "defeated"?

That and they really, really hate America & would like to see her lose.

urthshu   ·  November 27, 2005 08:31 PM

Even if the anti-Vietnam left has the right to speak for the 60's generation, it surely doesn't have the right to speak for those that came before and after it.

Richard R   ·  November 28, 2005 02:31 PM

Is it cynical of me to think MSM reporters are casting wide nets, hoping to find another Cindy Sheehan?

Harkonnendog   ·  November 28, 2005 02:50 PM

There is a lot more at work here. I spent the nineties reading about the Soviet Union and China. One of the things that struck me was how many in our "intelectual establishment" were so convinced that communism was the way of the future that they were pre-aligning with it. A lot of them were boomers. A lot of them were in the anti-warm movement. A lot of them have given their lives to a cause that is now shown not just as hopeless but as rotten to the core. Their reaction seems to be to deny there was ever anything wrong with the Soviet Union or that moral equivalency never operated. The whole "America was bad too", the "the good guys lost", the "at least they were trying" and, of course, my ever favorite "the SU wasn't true communism". (which can be boiled down to 'it was better in my head.') Throughout the nineties they kept saying the US would break apart just like the Soviet Union (like the two had anything in common, really.) Now they're desillusioned in that and see the war in Iraq as a twin chance to recapture the glory days of Vietnam war protesting and "get back at America" thereby proving America was bad too, they didn't live in vain, and they were right all along.
Look -- I'm ten years younger than the boomers (their original ending, as around 59 -- not the revised 'we are still relevant' ending. No one born in the sixties protested the Vietnam war) -- and as a generation I find them very tiresome. I've been hectored, maligned and co-opted by them all my life. But even I never thought they -- as a generation. People like Eric excepted (some of my best friends fall in the demographic)-- would sink so low. It's mid-life crisis and an attempt to make sure civilization goes down with them. All at once. Ew.

Portia   ·  November 28, 2005 03:20 PM

Richard R said: "Even if the anti-Vietnam left has the right to speak for the 60's generation, it surely doesn't have the right to speak for those that came before and after it."

They have the right to speak ONLY for themselves: the anti-war left. Period. I'm not a boomer (born in '45), but I'm close. And I'm sick-to-death of the self-absorbed nature of that generation, including the oh-so-vocal left trying to resurrect their "glory days." Feh.

Thanks, Eric, for a great post.

Buck Pennington   ·  November 28, 2005 04:40 PM

Excellent comments too. Thanks! I was born in '54, which was the post-draft portion of the Boom. The older ones who fought the draft tend towards a more sanctimonious attitude. (Yes, Portia, I too, have been "hectored, maligned and co-opted by them all my life.") But what about the ones who served? They're mostly forgotten or rewritten.

Theron, I fear such thoughts are not too cynical.

Eric Scheie   ·  November 28, 2005 05:50 PM

Kulick's mom got the news from an officer at the other end of a telephone line.

tweet Is that accurate? My understanding, which may well be wrong, is that the military always informs next-of-kin in person in case of a death, not by phone. Anyone know?

jaed   ·  November 28, 2005 07:45 PM

The notification of death is *always* to be delivered in person by a military member of equal or higher rank while accompanied by a Chaplain. The casualty notification duty rotates and a service member goes on that duty with great trepidation that he/she will be called upon to perform that duty.

B   ·  November 28, 2005 08:20 PM

These last two comments puzzled me, so I returned to the text of the Inquirer article:

Jim Kulick Sr. lay in bed, unable to sleep. A day earlier, his son had told him what would happen if he died.
"You will know it is me when you hear a knock on the door," Kulick had told his father.
That knock came at 6:30 a.m. Aug. 10.
"I am here to inform you that your son, Spec. John Kulick, was killed last night in Operation Iraqi Freedom," the officer said.
"That can't be," his dad said. "I just talked to him not too long ago."
Dazed and disbelieving, he took a seat at his kitchen table in Rockledge, where he wrote weekly letters to his son, always signing the return label "Proud Army Dad Jim Kulick."
Eighty miles away, in Brigantine, Kulick's mom got the news from an officer at the other end of a telephone line.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/breaking_news/13266919.htm

The father was visited in person, and the mother appears to have been at the shore. I don't know the protocol, but it might be that the officer sat down and called her from the father's house with his approval.

Eric Scheie   ·  November 29, 2005 09:20 AM

Thank you for posting this.

Honestly, maybe it's because the parents are "boomers," but I can NOT imagine my parents (WW2 and Korea generation) would TALK TO THE PRESS about how they would "interpret" the feelings of their son/daughter in death. I know they are grieving, but how dare they? They can't even rely on the "he was too young to know better," excuse. He was 35. For God's sake, respect him!

I think it's time for ALL soldiers to write their own epitaph. It saddens me that a parent, would not respect the memory of their child.

Catherine   ·  December 1, 2005 07:40 PM

WE may say the Johny K was disillusioned in Iraq, but make no doubt what he and Punchy, Straub, and Detample died for that day. Each other, and there brothers who where out there with them. Thats what we fought for, each other. Those guys where like my brothers. I didnt like that place either. but i would have gladly laid my life down for any of em. If you werent there, you cant understand. John was a hero, and a great friend. He wouldnt have liked his name or his parents name to have shown up on this website, so i had to speak for him.

Mark Fisher   ·  December 7, 2005 10:11 PM


March 2007
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
        1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

ANCIENT (AND MODERN)
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR


Search the Site


E-mail




Classics To Go

Classical Values PDA Link



Archives




Recent Entries



Links



Site Credits