Veteran Dan Gomez heartily endorses William Broyles’ 1984 essay “Why Men Love War“:
It is the most perfect piece of military writing on the subject of ‘why’ that I have ever come across. It is for me, the ‘big bang’ theory of why we fight.
Broyles’ takes the reader through a fantastically descriptive journey of what war feels like and he gets it down better than anything I’ve ever read or even anything I’ve even seen in film. It’s a long form piece that he wrote more than fifteen years after returning from Vietnam. He had the time to reflect on his experience and the space in the magazine to get it all down. In 6,588 words, he paints the thoughts in his head and the feelings in his heart.
That’s why men in their sixties and seventies sit in their dens and recreation rooms around America and know that nothing in their life will equal the day they parachuted into St. Lo or charged the bunker on Okinawa. That’s why veterans’ reunions are invariably filled with boozy awkwardness, forced camaraderie ending in sadness and tears: you are together again, these are the men who were your brothers, but it’s not the same, can never be the same. That’s why when we returned from Vietnam we moped around, listless, not interested in anything or anyone. Something had gone out of our lives forever, and our behavior on returning was inexplicable except as the behavior of men who had lost a great – perhaps the great – love of their lives, and had no way to tell anyone about it. …
This month marks the thirty-year anniversary of the publication of ‘Why Men Love War.’ It’s no less true today than it was then. I hope that it will be widely read, especially among today’s newest generation of veterans, to give them the peace of mind that what they’re experiencing is not new. If they read with an open mind, they might even come closer to reconciling their feelings on war, and recognize that there is no great answer but the terrible truth. We love war because it’s fun. It’s terrible, reviling, and true. The dirty, nasty thing was a blast, and we know we’re not supposed to think that. We’re especially not supposed to feel that. But we do.
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
