The Nation July 15, 1991
Author: Halberstam, David

WE HAVE ALWAYS TAKEN PATRIOTISM SERIOUSLY in our family and we have always thought it, not unlike religion, a relatively private thing. Charley Halberstam, still a kid, was a medic in World War I and saw a good deal of action. Because the doctors thought he was bright and eager, he went, with their encouragement, back to school after the war and eventually became a doctor. When World War II began he returned as a combat surgeon at age 43 and served once again in France and Germany. Involuntarily expert on the carnage of war, he absolutely hated jingoism. Among generals, he liked Bradley and was wary of MacArthur (because of the latter's speeches rather than his rather careful use of his men in World War II). He had a particular loathing for the politics of organized veterans' groups.

His was a handsome legacy: His sons never doubted that we were good Americans and that we were entitled to the right to dissent. When I was a young reporter in Vietnam taking a good deal of very meanspirited heat for not being sufficiently patriotic, I thought often of him and remembered that he had always taught me to stand up for what I thought was right. As such I have ended up admiring brave men and women who have been in combat, and men and women who are equally brave in their willingness to go against the grain of a society on other issues--I think often of the heroism of the early civil rights workers. I have grown up over the years with a belief that the braver the individual in combat, the less likely he is later to talk about his military past or to make a political career exploiting it, and in particular tying it to hawkish political views. Little of what I have seen in American politics in the past twenty years has disabused me of that.

I have a private belief that patriotism in a nuclear age is almost beyond comprehension, and that regional wars are a great deal more political than most people think. While (after the Persian Gulf war) I was pleased to see the military achieve a proper and healthy respect from the society at large, I was also made uneasy by the Super Bowl quality of cheering by the general populace, cheering as they did the sacrifices of other people's children--I had a sense of a kind of no-fault patriotism at work in the land.

Yes, a tragic loss to truth and integrity.

fuck.

we needed him.

.

I just found out about this a little while ago while listening to Fresh Air. He was so very good. One thing jumps to mind, years ago, I saw a panel discussion with Halberstam, and several "name reporters", I think Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel were on it for sure, and maybe Tom Brokaw; the telling thing was, whenever Halberstam spoke the others instantly stopped talking and listened intently. It was pretty obvious that they respected the hell out of him.