Copyright, Jake Miller
The current Iraq War is quite a test. No, it's not like any of the examinations that my ninth graders face, but it does test a lot of things in this country: unity, morality, rationality, politics - just to name a few. As each day passes, soldiers sacrifice, support for the war wanes and the conflagration grows more complex.
Especially at home. Here we find that there are no standardized means of assessing the direction and length of the war, but we all too well feel that we are experts - pundits who thoroughly express our opinions as if we were 14-year-olds who knew more than the teacher.
These opinions that Americans, both on the far left and right, adhere to became increasingly obvious when I invited my brother (the maniac in the above pic), a two-time Iraq War veteran, into my classroom. The young students in my class continually tried to make sense of the foreign war through what little information the media, their teachers and their parents have provided them. Any observer could sense they were troubled. One could notice it in their eyes. More so in their questions.
They would prod my brother for his opinion as to whether America should occupy Iraq, to which my brother replied, "Part of me says yes, but most of me says no."
And they would ponder the timetable for withdrawal, to which the steady, young soldier boldly countered, "If we pull out now, or even in the next five years, it's going to be hell. It's going to be religious persecution. While it would be great to leave, we can't."
Complexities like this are what cause many of us, like perplexed 14-year-olds, to get lost in the war. We know we have read about the subject, studied the subject, and heard the arguments, but the intricacies of the war destroy any of our hopes in comprehending it.
Yet far too many citizens fail to understand that the Iraq War is incapable of being fully understood a comfortable 4,000 miles away. Even with a college education, political experience and constant statistical analysis, I finally realized I am an ignorant student.
You probably are, too.
The same overwhelmingly holds true for our elected leaders - many of whom have no active duty military experience. Throughout the major wars the United States participated in, Congress and other officials had a sizable bloc of members who served in the armed forces. Not today. They are mostly lawyers and MBAs, many of who cannot fathom fighting a war or wielding a weapon.
So, is it as dire as if my 14-year-olds have overtaken my classroom? No - but it is a crucial time to make students out of our leaders and our public. The real experts behind the war - those who fought in it - have too long been silenced. Regardless of your political beliefs, all Americans want to find the best outcome for victory with losing as little lives as possible. But we will never unearth that approach if we prevent our teachers, the soldiers who have bravely braced the battle, from teaching; and we will never pass this, the greatest test so far of the 21st century, without silencing our own beliefs and taking notes on the lesson unfolding in front of us in each soldier's story.
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