We were soldiers once and we are fathers now
Envisioning a trip to the GWOT Memorial with my son
It was not until I became a father that I realized memorials were as much about the future as they are the past. Prior to the birth of my son in 2021, when I prayed at my friends’ graves in Section 60 at Arlington Cemetery, walked by the Horse Soldier memorial near where I work in New York, or stood silently at attention as my classmates’ names were called out in a Final Roll Call service at West Point, the experience was primarily one of retrospection. I journeyed backwards in time, to remember my friends as they were and to reflect on who I was, and who we were as a nation, in the days when we were at war1.
But as a father, that journey must now also look forward; my son a co-pilot as we consider the ways his future will be shaped by the wars of my past. It is this journey, as a father, that is on my mind this Veterans Day, as I think about the opening of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) Memorial scheduled for 2027.
Source: DVIDS
When we visit during its opening, I will be 43 and my son 6. He’ll be old enough to understand and ask questions, about the war, about what I did in the Army and our family’s experience during a time of war, and about my friends and those I served alongside of. I don’t know whether he’ll ask what the war meant and how it has impacted our world, but those questions will certainly come in time.
This experience that I see in my mind’s eye is not unique to me; my generation of veterans will, on average, be quite old when we first journey to the GWOT Memorial. In 2027, the average age of a GWOT veteran will be 47; a number that likely increases if you consider the 3,400 non-uniformed Americans who gave their lives in these conflicts (and who will be honored at the memorial). This dynamic will be new for the country—when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened in 1982, the average age of a Vietnam veteran was around 37. While there are many young GWOT veterans, as a cohort we will arrive at the memorial not as individual men and women still early in our lives and careers, but as fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, and in many cases grand-fathers and grand-mothers; people for whom the future is much more about the lives of our children and grandchildren than it is our own. This has distinct implications for the memorialization process.
Memorials are always about meaning. As Sabin Howard, the creator of the new World War I memorial in Washington DC, “A Soldier’s Journey” put it: “How can I tell a story that everyone will understand clearly. How can I tell a story that has universal meaning.” Or as Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore directs journalist Joe Galloway at the end of the film We Were Soldiers, which chronicles the 1965 battle of the Ia Drang Valley, “You tell the American people what these men did here. You tell them how my troopers died.” The stories of meaning conveyed directly through, or otherwise enabled by, the GWOT Memorial will need to be ones that families can experience together as much as ones that any visitor can journey through as an individual.
It might seem as though this thread is intended primarily for the design team and event planners leading the GWOT Memorial. And certainly, part of the responsibility for how people experience the memorial rests with this team. But the much greater responsibility falls on us, the American people. This is true in two respects.
First, whether and how we choose to engage with the memorial. When it opens and in the years that follow, do we visit? Do we commit, whatever the frustration or uncertainty we might hold about how these conflicts played out, to being a part of the memorialization process? To spend time at the memorial and to take it in with our families and alongside our fellow Americans; it is up to each of us to make this happen. Our choices in this regard will dramatically shape how the country, both its veterans and non-veterans, perceive the memorial and the purpose it will serve in healing and strengthening us. Case in point—the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now the most highly-visited memorial on the National Mall, drawing millions each year. This is not a random development nor the product purely of its unique design elements; it is an outcome driven by the commitment so many have made to engaging with this sacred space.
Second, how we help answer the question that all our children will at some point ask: “what was the war fought for?” As much as Iraq and Afghanistan are the central theaters for this war, we did not fight to defeat a nation-state or alliance of countries; it was a war against terror. A war fought, as President Bush told the nation in October 2001, to defend, “not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear.” We fought for freedom from fear.
So when our children ask what we fought for, how we answer will depend very much on the society they see when they look around. Will we be a nation still gripped by fear and pulsing with anger? Or will we have found some greater measure of freedom from fear? The memorial itself cannot answer these questions, only we can.
Additional Resources:
Learn more about the GWOT Memorial here.
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The Global War on Terror presents a distinct memorialization challenge. In very real ways, America remains active in this war, with service-members giving their lives as recently as this year in deployments connected to the war on terror authorizations. At the same time, most Americans probably have a conception of the war that consists of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 until 2021.