Veterans Day falls tomorrow, marking the end of the so-called Great War of 1914–1918. It will probably be a low-key commemoration. America is not engaged in any major wars at the moment, although now we have this new Department of War, we probably won’t have to wait long. War is often said to be a unifying force, bringing citizens together in patriotic support. But, in reality, any war shows up the fault lines in society – some will be for it, and some bitterly against, and perhaps the biggest divide is between those who have been in the military and those who have not.
Armies are mankind’s oldest institution – and I mean mankind, not humankind. It must have been one of the great moments in evolution when men moved on from banging each other on the head with clubs one at a time to banging each other on the head with clubs in large groups. Humanity has never looked back. Alexander the Great conquered practically the whole known world with swords and an army of ten thousand. Now we have armies beyond imagination and weapons beyond comprehension. But it’s still the old, primitive drama down there on the battlefield with the clubs – scared young men sent out to fight by brave old men who just happen to be hiding in a deep bunker at the time. Old soldiers never forget this.
I must confess that my own military experience was minimal, but I remember it better than almost anything else in my life. For years after the Second World War, all able-bodied British men were subject to the military draft at the age of eighteen. The phrase “able-bodied” was interpreted so liberally that I was drafted myself in 1957. We were the great standing army of the unwilling, commanded by the incompetent to do the unnecessary.
Good wars were hard to find in those days, apart from the permanent turmoil in the Middle East. But something had to be done to keep us all occupied. My regiment was sent to Cyprus, where the Greeks and Turks were squabbling over the possession of that lovely island. The dispute is still going strong in 2025, more than sixty years after my brave intervention. There must be a lesson in this somewhere.
Some people seem born for military life, but I was a terrible soldier. I’m against violence, which is not the best qualification, and I scarcely ever loaded my gun, out of a justifiable anxiety that it might go off and hurt somebody, probably me. Most of my conscripted comrades were not much braver. When the going got tough, we preferred to make a quick U-turn and head in the opposite direction.
But we were mere draftees, and heroism was not required. Today’s armies are all professional. They are trained to fight our battles for us, while we hide. Heroism and sacrifice are expected of them, as they always were in the past. If we ever get a Department of Peace instead of a Department of War, we may not need our armies. But now we do. In a world so deeply committed to conflict and violence, Veterans’ Day is a bittersweet reminder of that.
