Published: March 15, 2008 09:19 pm      

They’d despise what has been done with it

Few people noticed when the last surviving German soldier of World War I died this past New Year’s Day.

Erich Kaestner, 107, was an infantryman for only a few months and never went to the front lines. Except for his family, nobody paid any attention to his death or figured out its significance for nearly a month.

The Associated Press explained that Germany has no organization devoted to keeping track of its veterans because the two World Wars in which they served were wars they lost, and because Germany is still dealing with its responsibility for the Holocaust.

By contrast, America and the other victors of World War I and World War II revere their veterans. They were the Good Guys. Kaestner and his comrades, regardless of what else they did with their lives (Kaestner was in ground support for the Lufwaffe in World War II and later became a highly respected judge) will forever be the Bad Guys.

How many World War I veterans of any nation remain alive depends upon what standards you apply.

Frank Buckles, 107, of Charles Town, W.Va., is the last living American veteran of World War I who finished basic training and was stationed overseas before the end of the war. Unlike Kaestner, he is considered a national treasure and was a guest at the White House earlier this month.

Winning makes a big difference. The usual scenario is that only the winners write the history, and only the winners get to celebrate, but America’s Civil War is an exception. Its history has been written by both the winners and the losers, and little shame is associated with having lost; to the contrary, a certain pride and nobility are attached to it.

The comedian Carlos Mencia says that southern white Americans are the only people in the world who re-enact the battles in a war they lost. That may be true, but Northerners whose ancestors won the war join them in doing so, and they have a grand time.

A friend of mine takes part in these re-enactments as a Confederate soldier. He and his buddies spare no effort (or expense) to study the Civil War and the circumstances that led to it, and to understand the minds of those who participated in it. When I told my friend I had a relative who was buried in two places, he immediately knew who I meant and said he knows the guy who played him in the movie.

For whatever reason — it’s certainly not enlightenment, although they think it is — some modern Americans apply today’s standards to historical events. Rather than consider the knowledge, experience and beliefs of those who were alive at the time, they decide what should be done if a similar situation existed today and insist it should have been handled the same way back then.

That doesn’t work. Try asking an Army or Marine veteran of World War II if the atomic bombs saved him from dying during an invasion of Japan. What he tells you will probably contradict some of today’s “enlightened” thinking.

It’s commonly said that “The Civil War was fought because of slavery.” As an oversimplification, this is about like saying Noah had to build a boat because it was raining.

However, to diminish the matter of slavery when discussing the Civil War with a black American would be like telling a Jewish American that the Holocaust was not a major issue during World War II. It might not be a big deal for some people, but it is for him, and he has damn good reason to feel that way.

Some now consider those who fought for the South to have been traitors, but in 1861, the concept of a national identity was nothing like it is today. Many people felt their primary loyalty was to the state in which they lived, rather than to any Union of states. That was the common sentiment before the American Revolution, and it persisted even after independence was achieved.

This state-oriented allegiance was particularly strong in the South. When Gen. George Pickett sent his men forward at the start of their ill-fated charge at Gettysburg, he urged them to remember they were doing it for Virginia.

There were Good Guys and Bad Guys on both sides during the Civil War. Some who fought for the Confederacy wanted to see slavery abolished, and some in the Union Army wanted to see it preserved (particularly those who feared they would lose their jobs to freed slaves who came north). Most had other things on their minds.

An often-told story is that of a Union soldier who asked a Confederate prisoner if he owned slaves.

“No,” said Johnny Reb.

“Then why are you fighting?” asked Billy Yank.

“Because you’re here,” said Johnny.

One of my relatives, Thomas M. Goldsworthy, served in the 12th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the Union Army and was wounded in the Battle of Bald Hill, near Atlanta. If you could ask him, he would probably say that he and his buddies were fighting to preserve their country.

A cousin on my mother’s side, Thomas J. (“Stonewall”) Jackson, served in the Army of Northern Virginia and died as the result of wounds he suffered at Chancellorsville; it’s his arm that buried in one place, while the rest of him is buried in another. He and his immediate superior officer, Robert E. Lee, would tell you that they and their men fought to gain their independence from tyranny — as some of their ancestors did almost a century before.

Jackson and Lee were generals, and a friend of mine’s father was a drummer boy in their army. If those three men were alive in today’s society, their qualities would lead the rest of us to think of them as good men who had good American values.

Beyond any doubt, they and the other good men who struggled, suffered and died with them would be enraged at the way their flag has been perverted into a symbol of hatred, rather than preserved as a reminder of the heritage all Americans share.