On Being Blind

Why Are We So Blind to the True Horrors of War? By Chris Hedges, Truthdig Posted on January 5, 2010, Printed on January 5, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/144929/ This article first appeared on TruthDig. War is brutal and impersonal. It mocks the fantasy of individual heroism and the absurdity of utopian goals like democracy. In an instant, industrial warfare can kill dozens, even hundreds of people, who never see their attackers. The power of these industrial weapons is indiscriminate and staggering. They can take down apartment blocks in seconds, burying and crushing everyone inside. They can demolish villages and send tanks, planes and ships up in fiery blasts. The wounds, for those who survive, result in terrible burns, blindness, amputation and lifelong pain and trauma. No one returns the same from such warfare. And once these weapons are employed all talk of human rights is a farce.

In Peter van Agtmael’s "2nd Tour Hope I don’t Die" and Lori Grinker’s "Afterwar: Veterans From a World in Conflict," two haunting books of war photographs, we see pictures of war which are almost always hidden from public view. These pictures are shadows, for only those who go to and suffer from war can fully confront the visceral horror of it, but they are at least an attempt to unmask war’s savagery.

"Over ninety percent of this soldier’s body was burned when a roadside bomb hit his vehicle, igniting the fuel tank and burning two other soldiers to death," reads the caption in Agtmael’s book next to a photograph of the bloodied body of a soldier in an operating room. "His camouflage uniform dangled over the bed, ripped open by the medics who had treated him on the helicopter. Clumps of his skin had peeled away, and what was left of it was translucent. He was in and out of consciousness, his eyes stabbing open for a few seconds. As he was lifted from the stretcher to the ER bed, he screamed ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ then ‘Put me to sleep, please put me to sleep.’ There was another photographer in the ER, and he leaned his camera over the heads of the medical staff to get an overhead shot. The soldier yelled, ‘Get that fucking camera out of my face.’ Those were his last words. I visited his grave one winter afternoon six months later,” Agtmael writes, “and the scene of his death is never far from my thoughts."

"There were three of us inside, and the jeep caught fire," Israeli soldier Yossi Arditi, quoted in Grinker’s book, says of the moment when a Molotov cocktail exploded in his vehicle. “The fuel tank was full and it was about to explode, my skin was hanging from my arms and face -- but I didn’t lose my head. I knew nobody could get inside to help me, that my only way out was through the fire to the doors. I wanted to take my gun, but I couldn’t touch it because my hands were burning." [To see long excerpts from “Afterwar” and to read an introduction written by Chris Hedges, click here.]

Arditi spent six months in the hospital. He had surgery every two or three months, about 20 operations, over the next three years.

"People who see me, see what war really does," he says.

Filmic and most photographic images of war are shorn of the heart-pounding fear, awful stench, deafening noise and exhaustion of the battlefield. Such images turn confusion and chaos, the chief element of combat, into an artful war narrative. They turn war into porn. Soldiers and Marines, especially those who have never seen war, buy cases of beer and watch movies like "Platoon," movies meant to denounce war, and as they do so revel in the despicable power of the weapons shown. The reality of violence is different. Everything formed by violence is senseless and useless. It exists without a future. It leaves behind nothing but death, grief and destruction.

Chronicles of war, such as these two books, that eschew images and scenes of combat begin to capture war’s reality. War’s effects are what the state and the press, the handmaiden of the war makers, work hard to keep hidden. If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be harder to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of the eight schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan a week ago and listen to the wails of their parents we would not be able to repeat clichés about liberating the women of Afghanistan or bringing freedom to the Afghan people. This is why war is carefully sanitized. This is why we are given war’s perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war’s consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining. And the press is as guilty as Hollywood. During the start of the Iraq war, television reports gave us the visceral thrill of force and hid from us the effects of bullets, tank rounds, iron fragmentation bombs and artillery rounds. We tasted a bit of war’s exhilaration, but were protected from seeing what war actually does.

The wounded, the crippled and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted off stage. They are war’s refuse. We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they tell is too painful for us to hear. We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myth of glory, honor, patriotism and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless. And those whom fate has decreed must face war’s effects often turn and flee.

Saul Alfaro, who lost his legs in the war in El Salvador, speaks in Grinker’s book about the first and final visit from his girlfriend as he lay in an army hospital bed.

"She had been my girlfriend in the military and we had planned to be married," he says. "But when she saw me in the hospital -- I don’t know exactly what happened, but later they told me when she saw me she began to cry. Afterwards, she ran away and never came back."

The public manifestations of gratitude are reserved for veterans who dutifully read from the script handed to them by the state. The veterans trotted out for viewing are those who are compliant and palatable, those we can stand to look at without horror, those who are willing to go along with the lie that war is about patriotism and is the highest good. “Thank you for your service,” we are supposed to say. They are used to perpetuate the myth. We are used to honor it.

Gary Zuspann, who lives in a special enclosed environment in his parent’s home in Waco, Texas, suffering from Gulf War syndrome, speaks in Grinker’s book of feeling like "a prisoner of war" even after the war had ended.

"Basically they put me on the curb and said, okay, fend for yourself," he says in the book. "I was living in a fantasy world where I thought our government cared about us and they take care of their own. I believed it was in my contract, that if you’re maimed or wounded during your service in war, you should be taken care of. Now I’m angry."

I went back to Sarajevo after covering the 1990s war for The New York Times and found hundreds of cripples trapped in rooms in apartment blocks with no elevators and no wheelchairs. Most were young men, many without limbs, being cared for by their elderly parents, the glorious war heroes left to rot.

Despair and suicide grip survivors. More Vietnam veterans committed suicide after the war than were killed during it. The inhuman qualities drilled into soldiers and Marines in wartime defeat them in peacetime. This is what Homer taught us in "The Iliad," the great book on war, and "The Odyssey," the great book on the long journey to recovery by professional killers. Many never readjust. They cannot connect again with wives, children, parents or friends, retreating into personal hells of self-destructive anguish and rage.

"They program you to have no emotion -- like if somebody sitting next to you gets killed you just have to carry on doing your job and shut up," Steve Annabell, a British veteran of the Falklands War, says to Grinker. “When you leave the service, when you come back from a situation like that, there’s no button they can press to switch your emotions back on. So you walk around like a zombie. They don’t deprogram you. If you become a problem they just sweep you under the carpet.”

"To get you to join up they do all these advertisements -- they show people skiing down mountains and doing great things -- but they don’t show you getting shot at and people with their legs blown off or burning to death," he says. "They don’t show you what really happens. It’s just bullshit. And they never prepare you for it. They can give you all the training in the world, but it’s never the same as the real thing."

Those with whom veterans have most in common when the war is over are often those they fought.

"Nobody comes back from war the same," says Horacio Javier Benitez, who fought the British in the Falklands and is quoted in Grinker’s book. "The person, Horacio, who was sent to war, doesn’t exist anymore. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about normal life; too much seems inconsequential. You contend with craziness and depression."

"Many who served in the Malvinas," he says, using the Argentine name of the islands, "committed suicide, many of my friends."

"I miss my family," reads a wall graffito captured in one of Agtmael’s photographs. "Please God forgive the lives I took and let my family be happy if I don’t go home again."

Next to the plea someone had drawn an arrow toward the words and written in thick, black marker "Fag!!!"

Look beyond the nationalist cant used to justify war. Look beyond the seduction of the weapons and the pornography of violence. Look beyond Barack Obama’s ridiculous rhetoric about finishing the job or fighting terror. Focus on the evil of war. War begins by calling for the annihilation of the others but ends ultimately in self-annihilation. It corrupts souls and mutilates bodies. It destroys homes and villages and murders children on their way to school. It grinds into the dirt all that is tender and beautiful and sacred. It empowers human deformities -- warlords, Shiite death squads, Sunni insurgents, the Taliban, al-Qaida and our own killers—who can speak only in the despicable language of force. War is a scourge. It is a plague. It is industrial murder. And before you support war, especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, look into the hollow eyes of the men, women and children who know it.

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, is a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute. He writes a regular column for TruthDig every Monday. His latest book isEmpire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

© 2010 Truthdig All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/144929/

Comments

[bsn]

This article points out that the media and the government are trying to shield what the public sees about war. They paint a picture of tanks, uniforms, and bravery that most people just accept as fact. The false sense of security prevents people from thinking about the dark side of war. In my opinion the public should know more about what is going on and see pictures of what is happening to the troops in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In class the discussion on the draft led to the conclusion that implementing the draft would be the end of the war. I think that if the public actually knew what was going on and saw pictures of the effects of this war that it could also lead to mass protesting and anti-war campaigns. So since the government does not want to end this war it would only make sense for them to keep pictures and true war stories out of the media.

[Tyler]

As I read this, all I could think about was the poem "Dulce et Decorum est..." After having read that poem, and studied what it was saying, the real nature of war (as good as could be told in words) was brought to my attention. After reading this, I searched some pictures of war victims and it blew me away. Words, as powerful as they may be, can never describe war. I would even venture to say pictures and films--while very helpful--can never describe war either. The fear and emotion that was mentioned in the opening of part 4 of Band of Brothers is something that can never be shown or described.

This article does a great job showing the true nature of war, and calling the reader's attention away from the political rhetoric and to the very essence of what war is. But, I still hold firm to the idea that no matter how many films, articles or poems we read, we will never be able to appreciate war until we've experienced it first-hand.

[JohnEvans]

I believe this article to be highly misleading. When I turn on my Tv and watch the news all I get on the war is causality reports and failures. While the media may censors the worst images, it censors all of the good. Those who, like the writer of this article, believe in total disarmament are fools. If we recall all our troops pledge ourselves to peace, our enemies would invade and we would find our selfs in death camps. Furthermore part of a soldiers sacrifice is to endure the atrocities of war so the citizens at home must not. Get the camera and media crews out of the way and let the soldiers do the job. However I must agree with author's sub-point that the mishandling of our veterans is a horrendous outrage. This men gave part of themselves so we could live in peace and were willing to give it their all. They should be first in line for whatever they want. They are the best among us and should be treated that way.

[quicktype89`]

"To get you to join up they do all these advertisements -- they show people skiing down mountains and doing great things -- but they don’t show you getting shot at and people with their legs blown off or burning to death," he says. "They don’t show you what really happens. It’s just bullshit. And they never prepare you for it. They can give you all the training in the world, but it’s never the same as the real thing."

Recently I went to the movies with my family to see Avatar, and was disturbed at the National Guard commercials they showed before hand to a PG-13 audience (weather that movie should be PG-13 or not is another story). The comercials were targeted to the 13 year old boys that wanted to see a cool 3D movie. They were basically saying war is like a video game: you get to play with cool electronics, jump out of planes, and hey, maybe meet women. Things that every 13 year old boy envys.
If only the main stream media would show us things like we saw in class today and be realistic with their veiwers. But we know they never will because nobody wants to watch burning bodies over dinner.
The truth of the matter is that the response of the media is the fault of Americans. In Vietnam it to the will of the people to be able to see what was happening, not the will of the media. We control what we see and if we want to see what's real we must look for it.

Now in response to John-
We can't be reactionists. If we live our lives under the fear instated by Dick Chaney this world will never come to peace again, so please don't assume that wanting to make peace with a place we destroyed will only lead to more pain because it won't. It will lead to an end of all of the hardships soldiers and their families endure. It will allow for a broken people to try and recover what they can of their culture, and their lives.
As for the rest of your response I agree about allowing soldiers to do their job and the betterment of veteran treatment.

[mgn]

This article strongly states the facts of how we as U.S. citizens know nothing about the truth of war. We hid behind shades to keep the reality hidden of what goes on outside of our country. I especially found it interesting when the article talked about how the media and Hollywood always try to glorify war by showing telling us only certain aspects of combat.
Within the world of cinema it seems appears to be that they only make war films which revolve around an American positive outcome. By this I mean the majority of all war films made by Americans depict a victory story from WWII. Through the use of cinema people are constantly misled about the facts, they let Hollywood’s embellishments fill their heads with misconceptions.
More books like Peter van Agtmael and Lori Grinker’s need to be released and available for the public to see the “Horrors of War.” Hopefully their photographs will teach us the truth.

[David Cook]

The answer as to why the atrocities of war do not affect us is simple: We are desensitized and ignorant. How can any of us truly expect to grasp the magnitude of bloodshed and violence when the closest we will ever get is Hollywood's rendition of war? We never will. If you want to point fingers at why we are so numb to the pains of war, point your finger right at Media. Journalism does not matter when there are ratings to snag. War casualties just become another statistic. The only way any of us will ever know what it feels like to be in a battle, a true life or death battle, is to serve in our military and be deployed overseas. We are a society of war natured video games and movies. Bloodshed is our entertainment and we are no better than the Romans in the Coliseum.

In response to Quicktype:
Why were you disturbed at the commercial for the National Guard? It is marketing. Pure and simple. How can we attract the youth to become interested in the military or serving the country? We glam it up, throw some video games in there and we'll meet our recruitment quota for the month. How else are children who do nothing but play video games going to learn about the option of service?

War is Hell. End of story. We'll never know what the hell we are talking about until we pick up a rifle and fight in their shoes. Until then, we are doing nothing but wasting breath and space on a page.

[cdavis17]

This article tells about the side of the war that we really do not see, the consequences. We see negative sides of the war in the news almost every day and we know that people are dying, but I do not think that the effects of the war are really shown. Many people that come back from the war are emotionally and some physically scarred for life.
In my opinion, I believe that we should get more information on what is going on in the war and everyday life for the soldiers of our country. I think that we get a "pretty" picture of what war is, and in reality it is nothing like that. The media needs to show what these men and women do for our country everyday. These books are a good way to show what really is going on and telling us about the good and the bad of the war.

[Brandon]

The reason I believe we are so blind to the true horrors of war is because we for the most part do not realize people are actually dying and are injured for the rest of their lives. I believe that us who are ignorant to war just want our troops to go somewhere and kill everyone. I do not think we realize that we will lose some of our fellow Americans. We think that our military can just go drop a bomb on some random place and that will be it. That state of thinking is totally wrong. Our troops get killed, many are wounded to where they will never be the same. We also do not realize that families have to deal with losing a loved one. I think we are blind to the horrors of war because we are ignorant. The article says,"They program you to have no emotion -- like if somebody sitting next to you gets killed you just have to carry on doing your job and shut up," Steve Annabell, a British veteran of the Falklands War, says to Grinker. “When you leave the service, when you come back from a situation like that, there’s no button they can press to switch your emotions back on." We also think everything is okay when soldiers return from war. War is something that is with you for the rest of your life. They are taught to be stone cold and have no emotion and when the war is over they stay the same. I believe this is almost as bad as the dying in war. If you're going through life as a zombie not feeling anything aren't you as good as dead?

[Torey]

I believe that the true reason that the average American is completely blind to the horrors of war because we are in the state of mind that says "out of sight, out of mind". I have to admit that I'm one of those people. I have no clue what war is really is like and I have no interest in finding out. However, I also want to say that one of the main problems with the war that America is involved in at the present is a very different kind of war than previous ones. It is called the "War on Terror". WWII was against Germany and Japan, yet this is a war against an unknown power really. Terrorism is an abstraction and I believe that the terrors that are occurring during this war will not be over for a very long time because we are not fighting a concrete group.

[quicktype89]

David-

I couldn't agree more to "We are desensitized and ignorant." If we were to think back to this past year's top movies, songs, and books they all revolve around America's favorite topic: violence (Back page in recent Newsweek magazine). So of course we are naturally uninterested in finding out about violence that is real, that hurts, and kills innocents. However that is why we can make a difference. By calling for a change in what the media shows we can see reality and put Hollywood on the back burner. Sounds almost as impossible as winning a war on terror I know, but trends in entertainment and media rely on us. It's all about supply and demand.

And as for the commercials, yeah I know what purpose they serve, it just saddens me that we are so ignorant and desensitized that a simple marketing trick will mold the minds of the average citizen, rather than a sense of national pride and protection-not saying that soldiers don't have those feelings, but hey that's not what the commercials advertise as important aspects of being a soldier.

[Tyler]

I have a question that I would like some input on if anyone would help. My question is, the military is made up of American citizens, the government is by the people, for the people...AND we have freedom of speech in every non-violent, non-encroaching way possible yet, we still have the feeling of complete helplessness in these areas (ex. the way our military markets itself). Honestly, I feel that it is a case of mass-ignorance.

[Julie Jackson]

This article was very eye opening and made me think a lot more about war. It is a horrible thing, but cannot be avoided and has to be done. It is sad that we cannot all just get along. The thing I thought a lot about while reading this is the fact that we may see some gruesome pictures and clips or movies about or from war, but it is one thing to see it then to actually be living it and seeing it for real. I know that there would be no way that I would be able to handle that. This make me appreciate even more what our soldiers do for us and what they are going through. The fact that when soldiers are done with war or come back home and can never be the same is very sad. It makes them go mentally insane. A part of the article that made me really sad was when the girlfriend saw her boyfriend in the hospital and ran. It is almost hard to believe that this is real life stuff. Almost you see movies and stuff but still do not get the full effect of what these people go through.

[Larz]

After reading this article I still feel the same about war. I have many people in my family that have been in war, and though they don't talk about it much, what they do say you can tell they are scared for life. They nor anyone who has been in war will never be the same again. What they have seen and gone through is so much more than what we see in movies or shows. The pictures, the movies, the shows, and more may seem disturbing but Im sure it is nothing compared to what it is really like. I agree with Julie's comment, war is a horrible thing, but it cannot be avoided and has to be done. I have so much respect for people in the military, because though it is their job they didn't have to choose it.

[Ghost]

The saying, "Americans are desensitized" couldn't be more true. We grow up with violent shows, games, and movies. In a way my heart goes out to these soldiers, but at the same time being a soldier is putting yourself in danger to defend your country. There is no draft in effect, therefore our soldiers signed up, went to training, took their pay, and all in all put themselves in a dangerous job.

The idea that the whole world will be in peace is ridiculous. There are always going to be people in power who will want to wage war on some country different than theirs. I do have great respect and love for our troops, they provide the blanket of security and freedom I enjoy everyday by taking orders from their leader, the President. Yes, many lives will be changed, traumatized, or taken but I believe with the love of friends and family veterans do not have to be damaged people but can bounce back and have a normal life.

[kmcnutt]

I think we can all agree that there is so much to learn from this article. After reading, I had to sit here and re-group my thoughts, bring my wandering mind back to my comfortable room and try to think of how I would respond to all I now know about war.
Chris Hedges is a powerful writer and has captured my thoughts on war. As I read lines telling the instances of the after-math in these lives and learn about facts of the war, I wonder why we keep choosing this tactic.
More Vietnam soldiers committed suicide than the ones who died fighting? The image of innocent children being shot and killed on their way to school? Men losing their legs, sight, wives and families? Other soldiers and servicemen losing sanity and the ability to even come close to being emotionally sound? These were the real kickers to me. How can people sign up for this?
The media has done a damn good job of hiding these from the public. Even with history classes, National Geographic magazines and NPR teaching us things about war,what I have seen and soaked in from Band of Brothers has honestly shocked me and I am in no way proud to be graduating college and just now realizing the horrific seriousness of war. I am, however, grateful to be learning and exposed to this knowledge now.

[Scarecrowe]

from Julie —

The soldiers do choose to go to war and fight for our freedom. Although,
we do not think a lot about what these soldiers go through and sort of
take them for granted. There are a ton of people out there right now
fighting for our lives to keep us happy and content. We may have not had
the best Presidents and they may have made some wrong decisions, but I
think that we should always have respect for our President. No one can be
perfect and make all the right decisions and leading a country no matter
what decision is made there is going to be people against it. I do agree
with the war after September 11th something needed to be done and we
cannot let them push us around. Security at airports use to be very laid
back and I think it is sad now how uptight things have to be because of

[Morgan]

I do believe that no one can ever fully understand the true horrors of war without experiencing it first hand. Some war movies depict a love story in the middle of a war without really showing the true horrors. The beginning of Saving Private Ryan is horrific. The scene at the end of the storming of the beach with the sea of blood washing up on shore is incredible. Also, the man with his intestines hanging out of his body is unimagineable and I'm sure just one example of the type of injuries that really occur during war time.