Gian Gentile is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former director of the military history program at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
There is a popular view in America, within the military and among civilians, that when it comes to war, U.S. service members fight and die for each other, for their buddies on their right and left. That is one reason many people were appalled last month when President Donald Trump said of four soldiers who died in the Middle East amid the conflict with Iran, “They said, and all of them said very strongly, ‘We can’t let, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon’” — in effect, they agreed with his war aims.
But ultimately there is no way of knowing why individual military personnel choose to put their lives on the line. Yes, some may strictly fight for each other, as memorably depicted in the television series “Band of Brothers,” about World War II. Others may have a higher ideal, a larger national cause — such as keeping Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon or bringing peace to the Middle East.
That unknowable quality holds true throughout U.S. history — Union soldiers in the Civil War might have fought to end slavery, to prevent the secession of Southern states or they might have simply been paid by someone who wanted to avoid military service.
And it holds true of soldiers around the world. In 1965, during the Vietnam War, Army Lt. Col. George S. Patton IV, son of the famous World War II general, published an article, “Why They Fight,” about the motivations of the Vietcong. He quoted an Army educator: “The Viet Cong movement seems to offer the common man a chance for political participation, economic betterment, social equality, rewards according to merit and identification with the nationalist struggle.” That’s quite a list.
I commanded a U.S. Army armored reconnaissance squadron in west Baghdad in 2006 at the height of the Shiite-Sunni civil war. Over the course of that year, my squadron had five soldiers killed in action, with about three times that number suffering life-changing wounds.
If someone had asked me what those five soldiers who were killed in action fought and died for, I would have honestly said I just don’t know. I knew each of them, some better than others, but not nearly well enough to presume that I understood why they had sacrificed their lives.
If I had been killed in action that year, and if someone had asked my wife and two children why I was there, why I fought, I believe they would have said that I deployed and fought because I was a professional soldier for many years and it was a task that the Army told me to accomplish.
That doesn’t in any way mean that the five soldiers under my command who were killed had similar motivations. They might have had five separate reasons, from just wanting to support their families to believing in the U.S. effort to turn Iraq into a democracy. Their families, best friends and loved ones probably knew, but I didn’t.
All that I know is that they were good, hardworking soldiers who did their duty during a rough year in Baghdad. There is great honor in that description, even if it is incomplete.
So, too, is there great honor in the service of military personnel who have been killed or wounded in action or from accidental causes in the conflict with Iran today: They were simply doing their duty. If that statement is incomplete and doesn’t cover the entirety of the reasons they deployed, fought and died, then so be it. Understanding any motivations beyond that should be left to their loved ones.
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