It was 1966 and Professor Robert A. Kelly of the economics department finished college and wanted to avoid a “coat and tie.” He decided to join the Marines and became a platoon leader, a lieutenant in the infantry.
With a day to go before he was redeployed to the rear of the army and out of harms way, he led his platoon into a “big engagement” against two battalions of North Vietnamese. In the three-day battle, he was wounded with several gunshots and spent several years in the hospital.
When Kelly joined the Marines, the war had just seen several important escalations. Operation Rolling Thunder had been launched, U.S. troop commitment reached the 200,000 mark and there were protests against the war held by both students and veterans of earlier wars.
Kelly has watched this war unfold with a great deal of experience and understanding about the lives of combat soldiers. And, he said that he believed that the war in Iraq was necessary.
“War is a waste of resources,” he said, but added that “defending yourself is a legitimate use of resources.”
Kelly likened the threat of Saddam Hussein to someone who had a big bag of sticks and stones and was willing to give these tools to terrorists.
“You’re sick of having sticks and stones thrown at you,” Kelly said. He then cited a litany of terrorist hijackings, airplane bombings, hostage takings and bombings in Africa, America and the Middle East.
Kelly said that it was terrible for innocent people to die in war, but he added that the young adults in the armed forces are equally innocent.
He mentioned that many soldiers join the armed services for the benefits, including money for a college education under the Montgomery G.I. Bill.
“There aren’t many people who go into the service because they want to kill people,” he said.
Kelly said that the typical Marine was a “kid trying to prove that he’s not a piece of crap … that he is OK.”
He said that he understood the moral obligation that protestors of the conflict have to voice their opinions, but he also wished “protestors made some allowance for how tough it is for the parents [of servicemen and women.]”
“You ought to have the right to die before your children,” Kelly said. He added that as a father and grandfather, he could not imagine the pain of the loss of a child.
While fighting in Vietnam, Kelly said that he thought little of the emotional stress that loved ones would be living with. However, when hospitalized for his wounds, he realized the pain that a parent would go through when his mother visited him.
Protestors do have a “moral obligation to not be silent if you think something is wrong,” he said, but their protests will have an affect on morale.
Despite both Vietnam and Iraq having vocal protests against the conflicts, Kelly pointed out some differences between the two wars.
“[The platoon leaders] were the decision makers in Vietnam,” he said while describing the tactics of the armed forces. “Vietnam was a squad leader and a platoon commander’s war … this is a general’s war.”
Kelly said that in close combat in an urban or jungle setting, the generals are not going to be making the decisions “block to block.”
Another difference between Southeast Asia 30 years ago and the current action in the Middle East is the extensive and instantaneous media coverage of the Iraqi conflict.
In response to the media coverage, Kelly said that he had good reason not to think of the war as being a spectator’s sport. The press serves an important role in a democracy and that it is a “good thing to have the press there,” according to Kelly.
One complaint that Kelly did have with the media coverage is that it can provide unreliable information. He paraphrased Winston Churchill and said that war consists of long periods of boredom followed by intense, short periods of fear.
The news media shows more of the fear, in Kelly’s opinion.
These moments of excitability have led to inaccurate reports of potential troop movements and imminent attack. “People are excited, they see things that aren’t there,” Kelly said.
Within the so-called fog of war, Kelly said, “you don’t know what’s going on.”
According to Kelly, his support for the war in Iraq was not founded on a desire to tell other people how to live.
“I want to share an ice cream cone with my grandson,” he said.
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