Sorrow-Glamour

Spy and Spirit #7

The veteran's experience since 1965 - They don't receive the same reverence for their sacrifice. The soldier was too modest, and the war was too far away and inconsequential. 

People don't want to hear about their experiences. They'd rather keep up with the Kardashians. The disgusting contradictions between our values and our penchants rendered many US combat veterans wards of the state as opposed to 'the greatest generation' who returned from Europe and the Pacific in the 1940s as victors who inherited the nation because their sacrifices created the modern world. 

Furthermore, the war industry took on a life of its own that commoditized warfighters rather than glorified their exploits. The home front lacked meaning. 

To add insult to injury, spies and soldiers had to contend with the reality that though they thwarted terrorist attacks on the homeland, disgruntled Americans with firearms proved to be a far greater national security threat than any insurgent from the Near East. The men and women sometimes lacked purpose or options as wars were replete with contradictions. There were no Nazis. The warfighters brought home memories of injury, death, poverty, and austere places where the enemy was indistinguishable from the populace.

The enemy had the opposite problem. An existential fight for their way of life. The death of a father or brother was common, if not expected. Whatever happens to their families, their homes, their bodies, and the years lost to horizonless war was a tribute to God, the cost of victory. 

In the recent Indian Jones film, Harrison Ford laments his son killed in the Vietnam War. He was unlucky. He had a family, then lost it because another generation was mutilated by armed conflict. Better to die in your prime. But American movies don't usually end in martyrdom. Lucky or unlucky, Indie has to go on, forget hard-won lessons, and relearn them in the most painful way possible.  

The death of a son in Palestine is destiny. If he lives, it's disappointment. Life under the boot. No future. 

This is Spy

The fleeting glamour paid to those who sacrificed years or made the ultimate sacrifice. 

And this is Spirit

The ceaseless sorrow endured by all those who paid blood to God and country.