Questing Parson: An Essay: A 150 Year Consequence

At 4:30 a.m. On April 12, 1861, B/General P. G. T. Beauregard gave the order for the first shot to be fried by the recently seceded State of South Carolina upon Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston Harbor. How strange it is that the ball which exploded upon the ramparts that morning would impact my life.

I am a son of the South. I didn't ask to be, but I am. I was raised in Southern culture, trained in Southern manners, and steeped in Southern history. Somewhere along my path to adulthood, I realized that Southerners identified themselves by region far more than do those from other parts of the United States. I think I know why.

In other writings on this blog, I've related a common encounter between me and my great-grandmother. She had been a little girl during the “War of Northern Aggression”, as she referred the immediate aftermath of General Beauregard's order to fire. When General Sherman marched his army through Georgia, he marched it smack dab through her family's farm. She wanted to be sure I knew what wretched creatures those Yankees were.

“Come here, boy,” she order as she sat on the sofa in Mama's living room. I'd approach her and stand where her gnarly finger pointed. She'd reach forward and hook my shirt with that finger, pull it up, and then with her other hand she'd point at my navel and say, “See where the Yankees shot you when you were a baby?”

I tell that story to relate why we “Southern boys” relate to being from our region. Those of my generation, perhaps, were the last to be indoctrinated by our grandparents, but subtlety it happened.

I relate this with the assumption you can do the math. I have entered my seventieth decade on this earth. The Civil War, the War Between the States, the War of Norther Aggression, or whatever you choose to call it occurred 150 years ago. And yet, when I heard on the news the reminder of the anniversary, my mind immediately identified me as standing on the shore looking out at that fort and not the other way around. I'm an educated person; I can, at least, put forth a somewhat articulate argument that I am reasonably intelligent. I am well-traveled. I am tolerant. I am accepting. And (here it comes, Granny) I was once married to a woman from New Jersey. Nevertheless, I am a son of the South and my Granny made sure I knew it was those damn Yankees who burned her farm.

I'm thinking back on Granny, her farm, her detesting Yankees, her gnarly finger in my navel, and I'm wondering if there's another great-grandmother in another land occupied by troops marching under the same flag as those who burned Granny's farm whose finger is pointed at a child's navel and who is saying, “See where the American's shot you when you were a baby?”

My theory is the reason my Southern generation identified ourselves with our region was simply we were raised by the only generation of Americans whose homes were occupied by an invading army. Knowing the impact I can but shutter at the effect our occupying army is having on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Think of the detrimental outcome of my great-grandmother's prejudices toward those “invaders” and how she tried to pass it on to me. Think of how long it took the South to embrace Civil Rights, to foster education, to break out of it's narrow view and to move beyond the Civil War. And remember that those “invaders” were Americans, also. They had a shared history with those they fought; the spoke the same language; they revered the same forebears; they even sang songs together, North and South together, across the battlefield between them. With all that commonality, still my Granny felt compelled to pass on her feelings.

No matter how just we feel our cause may be, in any conflict, we will never be recipients of the respect we think we are due when our army sits in an Afghanistan or Iraq grandmother's backyard. The longer we are there the longer the resentment will be remembered.

Andrew Bacevich's book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, presents the present day dangers of our militaristic approach to international relations and perceived dangers. He quotes President Dwight Eisenhower speaking of the consequences of pursuing the Cold War. Eisenhower, of course, spoke in the 1950s:

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. i

On the NPR/American Public Media program Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett once spoke with an Army Chaplain who had returned from Iraq. He made one observation concerning the militaristic response then being played out in the Islamic land: “You cannot,” he said, “kill an idea with a bullet.” ii

I worry about the consequences that will be coming from what is now being referred to by the military command as “The Long War.” I worry about that Islamic child whose grandmother has her finger in his navel. I worry because I know how deeply entrenched I became in being a Southerner because an invading army occupied my Granny's farm. I worry because Granny's lessons whispered in my memory when I heard about the anniversary of the start of the war Granny lived through. The word “Fort Sumter” triggered my memory. For those little children across the sea with the word be “Drone,” or “Abu Ghraib” or some other trigger to the memory.

I fear the consequence of this militaristic approach will be with us at least 150 years.
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i Andrew Bacevich, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, Copyright © 2010 by Andrew Bacevich, Metropolitan Books, Kindle Version, Location 3365

ii With apologies to the Chaplain Major. I have been unable to find my notes from that interview of perhaps five years ago.