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Justice and the Declaration of War
72 Plays1 year ago
In this two-part episode, Ray chats with veterans about the ways in which notions of justice are employed when declaring war.
Host: Ray Haberski
Guests: Jordan Hansen, Brody Hogan, Todd Shelton
Audio Engineers: Jason M. Kelly and Kelly Kerr
Readings:
- Lodge, Henry Cabot. “England, Venezuela, and the Monroe Doctrine.” The North American Review 160, no. 463 (1895): 651–58.
- Addams, Jane. “Democracy or Militarism,” April 30, 1899.
- McKinley, William. “Declaration of War,” 1898.
- Johnson, Lyndon B. Press Conference to explain troop escalation (1965), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQfghKebsQQ&t
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast & Hosts
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Justice and War in American History podcast. I'm Jason Kelly. And I'm Ray Habersky.
War's Influence on American Identity
00:00:11
Speaker
War has long been an indelible part of America's story, shaping national identity, values and principles. The experience of war has transformed the lives of each generation. And because of this, it has historically elicited impassioned debates and conflicting perspectives.
Podcast's Exploration Goals
00:00:28
Speaker
This podcast aims to explore this history by bringing together a diverse range of voices, veterans, active service members, citizens and scholars. Through our conversations, we will consider the ways in which war has shaped and reshaped notions of justice. In the process, we will engage with broad themes such as duty, heroism, suffering, loyalty and patriotism. Our broad
Comparison of War Histories
00:00:51
Speaker
framework during this season is to compare and contrast the histories of the Spanish-American
00:00:56
Speaker
Philippine-American and Vietnam wars, wars that had a profound effect on the people of the United States. The National
Impact of War on Veterans
00:01:03
Speaker
Endowment for the Humanities has generously provided funding for this project, making it possible to have conversations about the effects of war on American veterans, their families, and the generations who bear witness to conflict. Welcome back to the Justice and War in American History podcast. Today's
Veterans' Views on War Declarations
00:01:21
Speaker
episode, we're talking about justice and the declaration of war.
00:01:25
Speaker
So in this episode, I had a chance to talk to a faculty member and a couple of students who are all vets about what it means when the country in the United States declares war. How do vets in particular understand those declarations? And in sort of historical context, why it's important for a country to feel that it is behind that declaration of war, especially when the vets are fighting and dying and potentially killing for their country.
00:01:54
Speaker
We have two guests and I'll let them introduce themselves. Jordan, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself first. Sure. My name is Jordan
Veterans & Students Introduce Themselves
00:02:01
Speaker
Hanson. I am currently a student here at IUPUI studying social studies education. Plan to be a teacher in the future. Not sure what capacity yet.
00:02:10
Speaker
I served in the Army for five years as a 31 Bravo military police officer. Various assignments doing riot patrol, search and rescue missions. Then transitioned over, I'm in the Indiana Air National Guard now. Security forces officer, similar role, just different title. Good. Brody?
00:02:27
Speaker
My name is Brody Hogan. I'm also a student at IPY, also doing secondary social studies teaching. I was in the Marine Corps for four and a half years doing network administration and technical liaison. It's a lot more fun than it sounds.
00:02:48
Speaker
Okay, so both of you I've had as students in undergraduate classes here at IUPUI, so it's nice to think that you'll be teaching other students in the future. That warms my heart. I'm happy that maybe I'll get some of your graduates or you might become my colleague in the future if I'm still around. But one of the things that we often do in classroom settings when we talk about war and the justice of war is to think about
00:03:15
Speaker
how a leader justifies a nation going to war.
Lyndon Johnson's 1965 Press Conference
00:03:21
Speaker
The typical term for that is a declaration of war. In US constitutional policy, the idea is that a president needs to convince the Congress to formally declare war in order for the United States to enter it. Of course, we know from experience that is not always the case. But we do have, I think, one of the most fascinating examples
00:03:45
Speaker
of a kind of declaration of war. And this was Lyndon Johnson's declaration or his press conference talking about going to war in Vietnam, sort of, in July of 1965. It was really a moment when Johnson was talking about the escalation of troops in Vietnam.
00:04:04
Speaker
And what makes this important, of course, is that he is beginning what will become, up to that point, the longest war in American history, and a war that becomes sort of the touchstone for all wars from that point forward, right, when we think about
00:04:19
Speaker
how George H.W. Bush dealt with the First Persian Gulf War or George W. Bush dealt with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We always go back to what Johnson was trying to do in late 64 and then certainly in 1965 and whether or not the United States as a nation, as a people were really behind him and behind this war effort. There are
Johnson's Vietnam Argument
00:04:45
Speaker
plenty of opinion polls we can always look at but
00:04:47
Speaker
If there is a moment where Lyndon Johnson tries to lay out that the United States is about to enter a new kind of conflict in Vietnam is July 1965. My fellow Americans, not long ago I received a letter from a woman in the Midwest. She wrote, Dear Mr. President, in my humble way I am writing to you
00:05:17
Speaker
about the crisis in Vietnam. I have a son who is now in Vietnam. My husband served in World War II. Our country was at war. But now, this time, it's just something that I don't understand. Why? Well, I have tried to answer that question. Dozens of times and more, in practically every state in this Union,
00:05:48
Speaker
I have discussed it fully in Baltimore in April, in Washington in May, in San Francisco in June, and let me again now discuss it here in the East Room of the White House. Why must young Americans born into a land exaltant with hope and with golden promise toil and suffer and sometimes die
00:06:17
Speaker
in such a remote and distant place? The answer, like the war itself, is not an easy one. But it echoes clearly from the painful lessons of half a century. Three times in my lifetime, in two world wars and in Korea, Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom.
00:06:47
Speaker
We have learned at a terrible and a brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety, and weakness does not bring peace. And it is this lesson that has brought us to Vietnam. This is a different kind of war. There are no marching armies or solemn declarations.
00:07:17
Speaker
Some citizens of South Vietnam, at times with understandable grievances, have joined in the attack on their own government. But we must not let this mask the central fact that this is really war. It is guided by North Vietnam, and it is spurred by Communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South.
00:07:46
Speaker
to defeat American power and to extend the Asiatic dominion of Communism. And there are great stakes in the balance. Most of the non-Communist nations of Asia cannot by themselves and alone resist the growing might and the grasping ambition
00:08:16
Speaker
of Asian Communism. Our power, therefore, is a very vital shield. If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise or in American protection. In each land, the forces of independence
00:08:46
Speaker
would be considerably weakened, and an Asia so threatened by Communist domination would certainly imperil the security of the United States itself. We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else. Nor would surrender in Vietnam bring peace, because we learn from Hitler at Munich
00:09:16
Speaker
That success only feeds the appetite of aggression. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another country, bringing with it perhaps even larger and crueler conflict, as we have learned from the lessons of history. Moreover, we are in Vietnam to fulfill one of the most solemn pledges of the American nation.
00:09:45
Speaker
three presidents, President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present president. Over 11 years have committed themselves and have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation. Strengthened by that promise, the people of South Vietnam have fought for many long years. Thousands of them have died.
00:10:13
Speaker
Thousands more have been crippled and scarred by war. And we just cannot now dishonor
Justification for Vietnam Mission
00:10:20
Speaker
our word or abandon our commitment or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow. This then, my fellow Americans, is why
00:10:42
Speaker
We're in Vietnam.
00:10:47
Speaker
uh... this is just an extraordinary clip from johnson and i actually i like it so much because i think we we failed to remember in some ways how clear he made the argument for going into vietnam we can dissect it we can disagree with it we can even say the united states was unsuccessful right in in achieving whatever it was that johnson had set out
00:11:14
Speaker
It was pretty clear from what he said, what the rationale was. So at the risk of sounding like we're back in one of our classes, what do you make of what Johnson said? I'll start with you, Jordan.
00:11:29
Speaker
I think there's a lot to pick out of there that makes it difficult because, you know, going another document that we've looked at the path to war, like it's a fictitious example, maybe of McNamara and Clifford, I think. Yeah, Clark Clifford arguing both sides in 1965. And we don't see that we see the just kind of the justifications for doing it. Right. Not necessarily what the arguments against would be. And
00:12:01
Speaker
I think that's a good point, right? There's always something behind the scenes. There are more documents to look at. There's more history to sort of, there's a richness to a narrative. There are conflicts, there are disagreements. But when Johnson makes this speech, right, to the American public through a press conference, I mean, that's what the American public is going to hear. That's what he wants to leave them with. So, I mean, what did you,
00:12:26
Speaker
Sort of, again, your context in a sense, right, both of you, is that you joined the service, right? I would imagine, right, in part because you believed in the mission of the government and the service that was supporting the government. So Johnson is laying out what the mission is in Vietnam. What did you take away? What was the mission? What did he think that was?
00:12:51
Speaker
Well, the protection of the lesser man, not the lesser man, but the underdog, so to speak. The smaller country. And if we fail to do this, then in the eyes of the world, America has failed to live up to its promise.
00:13:09
Speaker
the big part of it. I grabbed from it at least. I feel like that's a justification that has continued to be used over and over again. To what end? I don't know. I can't remember if it was one of the documents that we've read together or something else, but it's
00:13:28
Speaker
What is losing? Is pulling out losing? Or where winning is continuing the same thing over in Oregon? You know, where's the line? That's a very good question that we certainly have thought a lot about recently. Rodi, what do you think? What do you take away from listening to Johnson lay out the rationale for war in Vietnam?
00:13:50
Speaker
Like Jordan said it was like how familiar that Argument of like American protection. Yeah is in conflict. Yeah, like I think similarities can be brought together from that and much more recent Arguments as to why our troops are where they are. Okay, and what they're doing. Mm-hmm It's also
00:14:14
Speaker
Really, I think, like you were saying, the simplicity of it makes it a lot more easy to digest by the average citizen. They don't have to imagine what warfare is. They just understand that there's this mission that needs to be done, like this great evil that is communism that must be stopped from spreading. Right.
00:14:40
Speaker
If the mission is about protecting South Vietnam and if the enemy is sort of the specter of global communism, what are the consequences that Johnson points to if the United States doesn't take up this mission? It's kind of twofold.
00:14:59
Speaker
saying that the specter of communism is the enemy opens up the door for this isn't the only conflict that we're gonna have with this right but it also kind of points to this like like justification and breaking it down for for everyone to have an enemy enemy to rally behind you know we have the context of studying a little bit more but for the average listener of this who might not they're just
00:15:24
Speaker
think these horrible things about communism has been the enemy that the world has rallied behind, and it's easy to make that case of the other for people to get behind.
00:15:38
Speaker
sort of interesting hooks that Johnson provides, right? He talks about Munich and the idea that, of course, was sort of the code for appeasement. And we know that appeasement of Hitler led to the worst war in human history, right? So clearly this is the same situation. Whether or not, you know, you want to push back on that a little bit. The domino theory is very heavy in Johnson's, at least his statement here, right? That if you lose Vietnam, right,
00:16:08
Speaker
Whatever is happening in Asia will go in the wrong direction other places will fall to a power that the United States is going to be opposing whether or not you know We ever wanted to for the foreseeable future, right? as as people who have been in the service and
00:16:32
Speaker
Does it matter that President Johnson laid out what he thought the mission was for the country in Vietnam? Because he starts, right, by addressing a letter he got from a young woman whose, I think, brother is in the service.
00:16:49
Speaker
And she's asking why, why is he, what is he doing there? What's the point of him being there? So again, he's speaking in a way, if you can imagine generationally to even folks like you, does it matter or how does it matter?
00:17:05
Speaker
I think having the clear articulation of whether there's stuff behind the scenes we know of that matters, but it does have that clear direction of this is why. And I think, especially when you are serving, when you're in the heat of whatever you're doing,
00:17:23
Speaker
that to you does matter. In my experience, when I was deployed, we, I'm using air quotes, we had that, but I didn't feel that. You didn't feel this solid mission that you could really justify what you're doing, where I think here, it plays out differently, but we see this, we see this is why we're doing what we're doing, and as a troop on the ground, you can feel good about that, you can get behind the passage.
00:17:54
Speaker
I think also that it's this attempt to like deify the American soldier in Vietnam. So like this is before you have like, you have like recruitment campaigns, but Johnson even says later in the, uh, later in the press conference about how he doesn't want to activate reserves. He wants to try to keep it, um, volunteer force.
00:18:17
Speaker
I think that maybe he'd put some thought into trying to make sure it sounded like something that maybe a young American man who is trying to find like what he needs to find he wants to find it there or he wants to make them think that's where it is.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah. Especially coming out of the legacy of, you know, the World War II and the stuff that happened before it's like, all right, this is our time to step up. So as a young American hearing this, I mean, you think this is my, my turn to fight my turn to step up for my country.
00:18:48
Speaker
And that has been a story that Americans have told themselves for generations, right? I mean, after the Civil War, there was this really sort of incredible moment, the generation that had come of age in the shadow of the Civil War generation.
00:19:06
Speaker
had the Spanish-American War as their moment of glory. And, of course, the Civil War generation, if maybe the younger generation had been listening, would have been hearing them scream, don't do it. I mean, war is not glory filled, you know, it is bloody and it's awful.
00:19:25
Speaker
And if you have to fight it, you fight it. But to choose it or look for it is probably not the best way to go as a young person. But we also know in Vietnam that the part of the population that was most supportive of the Vietnam War for the longest time were 18 to 30 year olds, which I know sounds crazy. You can look it up listeners, but it is because the older generations had experience with Korea and World War II.
00:19:52
Speaker
and were very wary of war and what that meant and certainly didn't want it for the younger generation if they could avoid it. You know, with the younger generation in some ways, perhaps Johnson's speech or his press conference, and again, as he said, he had gone on a tour, basically, trying to convince Americans that what was happening in Vietnam was right for the country, that they had a plan.
00:20:14
Speaker
Of course, you find out later through the Pentagon Papers that there was incredible conflict over whether or not whatever strategy the government was going to use is actually going to work in Vietnam. It didn't matter. He had to, at that moment, convince popular opinion in some way that this was not a losing strategy, that there was a reason for Vietnam to exist in American foreign policy.
00:20:38
Speaker
All right, so we have Johnson as a touchstone. I think he's one of the most important presidents when it comes to speaking about war. We also looked at Wayne McKinley's very famous declaration of war with the Spanish-American war.
Comparing War Declarations
00:20:51
Speaker
And I laugh because it's, for those who know it, one of the things that McKinley told Congress was that he got down on his knees and prayed to God to give him guidance.
00:21:04
Speaker
So I'm curious how both of you feel about the difference between how McKinley shapes his declaration of war or his justification for the Spanish-American war compared to Johnson. So, Brody, you want to take this one up first?
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think early in the declaration he talks about how the American common man is suffering because of the actions that are being taken in the area. He's talking about how commerce suffers and how those people are losing and every American in Cuba is losing their liberty because of what's going on there. He's trying to find the
00:21:43
Speaker
I guess those who need the protection, the little guy. Okay, again, so protecting a country that has been invaded or oppressed in some way and the United States is there to liberate or protect, okay? Also is interesting is he doesn't try to make as significant of an argument about the native people there. Okay. He wants the Americans to know that he's there to help other Americans and put them first.
00:22:12
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. The American connection to a place that was pretty close to the domestic American border. Okay. Jordan, what do you think? Very much echoing off of Brody, I think the sentiment of a very recent American Revolution and Civil War and this idea of freeing people from the oppressor like does kind of come into play.
00:22:38
Speaker
But that desire to help the Americans there, I know that was a big point of the document. So one of the things that students, people who look at any American conflict always ask is, how did the United States choose which oppressor to go after? Which little country to protect? Because if you really were, you know,
00:23:03
Speaker
you wanted to be equitable about it, there are places all over the world at all moments of history where the United States could intervene with the same rationale. Vietnam certainly communism plays a big role. It's the proximity to China. China's involvement in North Vietnam. This was in some ways part of the Cold War chessboard.
00:23:25
Speaker
And Johnson, we know, was making a case that if the United States doesn't stand up to North Vietnam, which meant it wasn't going to stand up to China,
00:23:35
Speaker
bad things were going to happen in Southeast Asia. But what
Choosing Conflicts & Foreign Policy
00:23:39
Speaker
is at stake for McKinley in the Caribbean and then ultimately the Philippines? I mean, what kind of foreign policy is he operating under? Well, I think it's funny you say that, you lead with that because wasn't there a Cuban insurrection 20 years before that America had nothing to do with?
00:24:01
Speaker
But now is the time that we need to step in and and help the cute like yeah It's just the the rationale behind doesn't add up there, right? but it's again like what does America have interest in protecting or what what is at stake for Americans and that's The bigger government what yeah, why are we what do we have what do we have to lose? Yeah, we I mean we have these like
00:24:26
Speaker
foreign policy frameworks, right? So in Vietnam, it was sort of containment and NSC 68, the idea that there was this existential war, you know, battle between communism, democracy and capitalism, and the United States was, you know, choosing a side and it was going to fight this war one way or another. The Monroe Doctrine, though, is similar in the 19th century.
00:24:51
Speaker
So, Brody, why should people care about the Monroe Doctrine? It's meant to be America's answer to like European imperialism. So it's kind of America telling the rest of Europe to stay out of North and South America. While also attempting to be like, well, it's just for their own protection. America has no interest. We just don't want you guys to have any access to them.
00:25:21
Speaker
because Europe tried and already failed to be good stewards of other countries. Now, this is something we have talked about. The United States likes to try to operate as if it can beat history, that it's not going to be an imperial power. It's not going to fail in war. It's not going to make the wrong decisions and cost too many American lives and the American public are going to give up on a conflict. And yet, as historians, it happens again.
00:25:47
Speaker
And again, because you can't beat history, you can't step outside of time, you know? All right, so before I leave you two, you have any concluding remarks on how we look at declarations of war from, and I want to preface this, from a veteran's perspective, does it matter when or how declarations of war are framed?
Veterans' Perceptions of War Declarations
00:26:15
Speaker
I think it does depend on the audience that specific speaker is trying to speak to. So whenever you declare war, the majority of your warrior population is going to be younger men, and you need to try to convince them why they need to go fight and die for you.
00:26:39
Speaker
I think that plays a really big role in kind of how you formulate your arguments. You need to make sure you can spell it out to them. Does it sound pretty consistent every time, you think? Okay. Jordan? As you were saying earlier, I think the generation before looking back at it, to echo Brody, who the speaker is directly speaking to plays the biggest portion in that because as a
00:27:07
Speaker
veteran still serving now, looking at any sort of declaration of war, I try to look between the lines a little more and more skeptical. What's the true message? What is actually going on here versus just taking what Johnson or what anybody else has said at face value? Yeah, and I think this is where the kind of conversation we get to have with you guys, you're not
00:27:36
Speaker
It's not green anymore, right? I mean, you've been through the service to a point where you understand maybe the implications are for the United States declaring any kind of involvement in a conflict. You know what that looks like. You know what it entails for real people together in foreign countries doing things that they've been ordered to do one way or another, right? The implications of that are pretty serious.
00:28:02
Speaker
All right. Thank you to you both. We'll get you on another podcast in this series. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Okay.
Modern War Declarations & Motivations
00:28:11
Speaker
So we're back with the second part of our episode on declarations of war and we have a new guest and I'd like him to introduce himself. Yeah. Hi, I'm Todd Shelton. Uh, currently I'm a lecturer in the program of media arts and science down at the Leti school of informatics and computing and engineering and computer science. All right.
00:28:29
Speaker
I was in the Army, got medically discharged out of there. I was a 25 Bravo, which is an IT person when I originally went in and ended up coming out as an 18 Echo, which is a Special Forces Communications Sergeant. Okay. Great time. All right. So the general
00:28:48
Speaker
gist of this episode is to think about when declarations of war are made. They often have a sort of format. We think about them in terms, both legal, meaning constitutional, that if the United States is going to go to war, there needs to be a declaration from Congress, right? But the president usually makes the case.
00:29:09
Speaker
And we started off by listening to Lyndon Johnson's press conference in July 1965, where he really does lay out why the United States needs to be in Vietnam. Part of it was the domino theory, part of it was the idea that communism had to be stopped in Southeast Asia to some extent, and South Vietnam needed to be protected from the North and from China's influence.
00:29:30
Speaker
We also talked about William McKinley's very famous declaration of war that prompted the United States to get into the Spanish-American War. But I think what I'm interested now to hear from you is a bit of reflection on the kind of tone or categories that you think
00:29:51
Speaker
go into these sort of declarations of war, right? They seem to be fairly consistent over time, right? There is an enemy, there is a sort of mission for the United States, there's a characterization of sort of what happens if the United States doesn't go into war, you know? But what do you hear? What kind of things do you think need to be there in order for you, with your experience as a vet, to accept a declaration of war?
00:30:22
Speaker
I think going back, I mean, you've covered a lot, you know, Johnson's speech, and then you went back all the way to McKinney, right? So talking about those, and then we come up to current days, and I think they're different in all three generations, right? Because the patriotism
00:30:42
Speaker
So let's go back to that. You didn't have news and everything back in those days, right? So I think in today's society, being a vet, and especially, you know, since 9-11, you know, and most of us, probably most of us in this podcast were post 9-11, right? Vets. You know, for me, we kind of made up our own mind. I mean, you hear that news before the declaration ever came out.
00:31:09
Speaker
So in my mind, that's interesting. Yeah. So, I mean, this is kind of a different view, probably in general, probably what you wanted. But for me, I heard all of that. Right. I mean, I'm already thinking, OK, let's this news is coming from all over and I've watched it. And so I was already justifying myself of like.
00:31:26
Speaker
So that's really interesting. Yeah. And you know the story of Pat Tillman, right? He played football for Arizona. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so he became an army ranger. He was killed friendly fire casualty right in Afghanistan. But he had a very sort of similar response. He wasn't waiting for the president or a Congress to act. He joined after 9-11. So that's an interesting idea, the idea that that generation, your generation,
00:31:53
Speaker
had made up their declaration before any formal official had done it. Yeah. So if you think about it, like, um, I can tell you where I was the day I watched all those planes, you know, 9 11. I mean, I was given blood at the time, you know, and I would just, they had a TV on. I'm like, wow. You know, so right then it was like, I'd already thought about going in, you know, and, and, you know, my whole life was like, huh, well, just kind of never did it. But.
00:32:19
Speaker
that right there. That's interesting. I'm going to take it on. So yeah, I think today's modern soldier can almost make up their own mind before that declaration ever comes out. That's interesting. You know, I mean, we hear so much and just think how much information. I mean, a podcast, how many podcasts are out there that we don't even know about? Sure.
00:32:39
Speaker
I'm probably talking way too much on this. No, no, no. No, I think there's something to that, right? Because certainly in the past, the idea of a leader like the president, right? Sort of singular leader in the United States, making a statement about why the United States is going to send mostly men into kill and die for the country means a lot.
00:33:02
Speaker
But that was, you know, Johnson's Air. There were three network television stations. That was it. Obviously a lot more newspapers and radio. McKinley's Day, it was covered by the newspapers and it was framed in various ways because the newspapers were controlled in very unique ways by the publishers and things like that.
00:33:23
Speaker
But I think you're right, the era that we're in, this sort of new information age, seems to be hyper-personalized. And the
Post-9/11 Military Motivations
00:33:33
Speaker
way that groups sort of rally around certain ideas or moments or events. Can you tell me a bit more about after you thought that you were going to sign up, did you talk to other guys who were also thinking in similar ways?
00:33:50
Speaker
I did, but for me, again, I mean, I was a little older when I went in, so a lot of people my age were like, are you kidding me? Why are you going in when you're 30 or something? But the younger ones did, and they were the same way. I mean, I think a lot of them, I bet if you look at like,
00:34:10
Speaker
just now, I mean, just different broadcasting stations, right? Certain ones, if you watch that one or you grew up on that one, your mindset is already to this way. And if you talk to that person, you get a different. So at the time I was working for General Motors, I was a production worker, you know, in there and whole different mindset of individuals. And, you know, I remember, you know, there we had some younger individuals in there that
00:34:39
Speaker
It was interesting to hear kind of their thoughts about it. I mean, there were, no, we don't need to go. Let's figure this out. Why are we going? Again, here we go. And it's like, no, I mean, you just saw this. I mean, that was one of the first attacks since Pearl Harbor, right? That's ever happened on our soil. And to me,
00:35:02
Speaker
That mattered. That mattered to me because I was probably older where I think a lot of younger don't feel that ownership of our country. You know, for me, I mean, again, I was a little older, you know, like right now I'm 53. So it's like, I feel that patriotism a little bit, you know.
00:35:21
Speaker
So I think I read a lot of accounts about Americans talking about war or soldiers. I've read a lot of novels, a lot of accounts from soldiers.
00:35:35
Speaker
about their experience in war, one of the things that is a recurring theme is this contrast, and it's often cast as very cynically, between the grandiose statement about why people go to fight and the experience of actually fighting, and that the vets are often the best counterweight or counterpoint
00:36:00
Speaker
to the official declaration that for them, ultimately, it's about saving each other's lives and doing a job and then and then getting the hell out, basically, you know, how do you make sense of that? What seems
Disconnect Between Narratives & Reality
00:36:13
Speaker
to be an endless conflict between the official understanding and what's really happening with the real experiences? Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
Man, that's, yeah. I mean, I think you just have to accept it and try to realize, in my mind, there was a lot of things that I didn't like. Of course, you hear a lot of other vets are like, my mindset has been totally turned around since when I wanted to go in and join. And then now it's like, no, I would never have encouraged anybody to do that. It's interesting.
00:36:50
Speaker
For me personally, I try to keep that fact of there's probably so much going on behind the scenes that I don't even know about.
00:37:02
Speaker
and knowing some of the things that I do just from being in, you know, and there are a lot of things that you don't know about. So there's people on a mission or doing something and they're like, why are we even doing this? Has nothing to do with that overall, you know, command to go to war. Why are we doing this? And there is probably a reason.
00:37:24
Speaker
that we just don't know about. But you're in there, but unfortunately they don't know about it, and so those people's mindsets, you're turning them around, right? So they're like, I'm turned off by this. So I think that's where the counter comes in, because they're seeing something that they didn't, they thought they believed in, and now they're doing something that they don't believe in, and is it tied together?
00:37:50
Speaker
So you've read through a few of those declarations. Did any of them connect with you better than others? Were you like, yeah, I'm a McKinley man, but Johnson's a little, I don't know. Or Henry Cabot Lodge, he made sense. Did anything stand out to you like this seems so arcane? I don't know why people would follow this guy.
00:38:15
Speaker
You know, I, I just, when I watched Johnson's, you know, this to me, I was like, wow, he's doesn't, he's not very motivated. You know what I mean? Very monotone, very, you know, like I did not feel energy. Okay. You know what I mean? I know he was trying to increase, like, we're going to move this up from 70 to what he said, we're going up 50,000 more troop, you know? And it's like.
00:38:37
Speaker
I don't feel motivated. I mean, he is not energy enough for me. OK. Now, I would have loved to have seen, you know, McKay's like, why are we going to war with Spain on this? Because I could I've read that and I can think, all right, if he has that powerful voice and he's doing this and that time, let's get it. Well, Theodore Roosevelt thought so. He was ready to go. Right. Yeah, exactly. Undersecretary of the Navy at the time or like that goes down to Cuba. Yeah.
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah. So I think it is. I think it's that person speaking. I mean, you know, you hate to bring this up, but I mean.
00:39:10
Speaker
A person, if they know how to speak and they know how to present themselves, I mean, Hitler talked a whole country into going to war for no reason and doing what he did, you know, and they believed in that. And that was because of a person knowing how to present themselves. Yeah. You know, it's funny to think back to Johnson, what we know now about Johnson in 1965 and all the statements he gave about Vietnam.
00:39:38
Speaker
knowing that he was incredibly conflicted about whether or not this was actually going to work and even some of the policies that he's talking about are policies that he doesn't necessarily come up with. He's asked somebody to draft something and he's just gonna say it.
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that 100%. That's why I felt like in that speech, I don't feel like he was in it. It was not in his heart and you could literally see it. I felt like there was a few times he would look off to the side. I don't know if something was going on or he was just like, I don't really believe in this. I think that was a hard speech.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, I mean there are a bunch of really interesting sort of, you know, semi-fictional films about Johnson in this era in which the point is pretty clear that his advisors are split. Johnson wishes that, you know, he could be involved in just about any other conflict other than this one.
00:40:32
Speaker
I know I would have hated to be in char in power during that time for that war I mean well that's right I mean it's interesting also he sort of brings in you know presidents that he sees in his own mind as being important sort of load stars right I'm not any different than Jack Kennedy and I'm not any different than Dwight Eisenhower the great commander you know that won World War two for you all you know they were in Vietnam so I have to be in Vietnam too
00:41:02
Speaker
That was it. Yeah. And there was so many other politics. And I think, you know, even during that broadcast and I don't remember the name, but wasn't this almost like one of the first times they actually put a newspaper or a broadcast person like in charge? Who is that that they introduced during that interview?
00:41:19
Speaker
Um, during the Johnson interview and said, okay, we're bringing somebody in that's been, you know, in the, uh, news press and everything for like 30 years, we're going to put him in charge of bringing this news back. And I think.
00:41:34
Speaker
Some of that to me is like, okay, why are they doing it? Why are they marketing? Yeah. Yeah. Why are they shaping the message and stuff? Yeah. You know, cause I mean, do we now have to say, okay, we're going to put this person over here and now we can control what comes back, you know, of like, we're going to energize the American people and know why we're there.
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah, I was telling somebody the other day that in World War I, there were a couple of times early on where the newsreels would show scenes from the war, from the trenches. And the first couple of times they did that, people gasped. Because of course, at that time, no one had actually seen moving pictures of actual war. And then that was it. They never showed.
00:42:19
Speaker
film of a front again and and we have this this illusion that it happened in Vietnam it didn't you know it there was there was not film of guys dying in Vietnam there may be the helicopter landing or guys being taken out but it wasn't actual combat that was being filmed you know
00:42:37
Speaker
It was just it was happening for year after year after year and so much is being written about so densely that the press became antagonistic, right? It was this
Press's Role in War Perception
00:42:47
Speaker
relationship between the press trying to uncover what was happening in Vietnam and the White House trying to control what's happening in Vietnam. And that conflict creates this idea that we don't know what's going on. The public doesn't know enough.
00:43:01
Speaker
Yeah, and they can shape a lot. I mean, you know, and one thing that I'm seeing right now, so I know we've talked about the past in Vietnam, but we start thinking about, you know, what's the declaration of war, right? So just
Reflections on Modern Conflicts
00:43:15
Speaker
think about the current things that are going on right now. I mean, you know, we watch Russian and Ukraine. Yes, right. So
00:43:22
Speaker
And right now we're supplying a lot of military support to them and just hearing some of those like, why? Why is that? But I look at one other thing is like with China, you know, our relationship with China. And if you start thinking about,
00:43:39
Speaker
some of the wording that's going on right now about just our conflicts with them, and now you watch them with Canada that just came out, and you think, okay, what's this building up to? Is this really kind of building up to a declaration? What kind of news?
00:43:54
Speaker
And now you're thinking like a historian, a social critic. No, it's scary because you see the patterns. And you hope because you can imagine with all the sort of statements that are swirling around that a president could collect them in a certain way. And the outcome is obvious, right? We have to go into some sort of war with the great enemy.
00:44:17
Speaker
It's kind of, yeah, this is all interesting. Ever since we started all of this, and I've read a lot of these articles and stuff, it's really opened my eyes. But I mean, I've always kind of thought these theories just being in, I think it was a little older being in to help me out. But I've always been like, Hmm, do I really want, you know, do I believe in that? Well, you know, I mean, why I just hope somewhere, you know, I mean, there's, there's a reason why we're doing this, you know, so yeah.
00:44:40
Speaker
All right, Todd, thank you very much. This is very good stuff. We'll have you back for another episode. But thank you. Yeah. Thanks for listening to Justice and War in American History. Please stay tuned for our next episode, which you can find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or through any of your favorite podcast providers.
00:45:03
Speaker
Please be sure to rate the podcast and to be in touch with us if you have any questions or feedback. You can find more information about this podcast and the broader justice and war project at justiceandwarseminar.org.
00:45:15
Speaker
If you are a veteran or concerned about a veteran who has experienced a mental health crisis, there is 24-hour support through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Dial 988 and press 1 or text at 838255. For more information on support from the VA, visit mentalhealth.va.gov. And, as always, special thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for making this project possible.