Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [13]
The facile reply to great groans such as mine is the most hateful of all clichés, “fortunes of war,” and another, “They asked for it. All they understand is force.” Who asked for it? The only thing who understands is force? Believe me, it is not easy to rationalize the stamping out of vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored when gathering up babies in bushel baskets or helping a man dig where he thinks his wife may be buried. Certainly enemy military and industrial installations should have been blown flat, and woe unto those foolish enough to seek shelter near them. But the “Get Tough America” policy, the spirit of revenge, the approbation of all destruction and killing, has earned us a name for obscene brutality, and cost the World the possibility of Germany’s becoming a peaceful and intellectually fruitful nation in anything but the most remote future.
Our leaders had a carte blanche as to what they might or might not destroy. Their mission was to win the war as quickly as possible, and, while they were admirably trained to do just that, their decisions as to the fate of certain priceless World heirlooms—in one case Dresden—were not always judicious. When, late in the war, with the Wehrmacht breaking up on all fronts, our planes were sent to destroy this last major city, I doubt if the question was asked, “How will this tragedy benefit us, and how will that benefit compare with the ill-effects in the long run?” Dresden, a beautiful city, built in the art spirit, symbol of an admirable heritage, so anti-Nazi that Hitler visited it but twice during his whole reign, food and hospital center so bitterly needed now—plowed under and salt strewn in the furrows.
There can be no doubt that the Allies fought on the side of right and the Germans and Japanese on the side of wrong. World War II was fought for near-Holy motives. But I stand convinced that the brand of justice in which we dealt, wholesale bombings of civilian populations, was blasphemous. That the enemy did it first has nothing to do with the moral problem. What I saw of our air war, as the European conflict neared an end, had the earmarks of being an irrational war for war’s sake. Soft citizens of the American democracy learned to kick a man below the belt and make the bastard scream.
The occupying Russians, when they discovered that we were Americans, embraced us and congratulated us on the complete desolation our planes had wrought. We accepted their congratulations with good grace and proper modesty, but I felt then as I feel now, that I would have given my life to save Dresden for the World’s generations to come. That is how everyone should feel about every city on Earth.
Great Day
When I was sixteen folks took me for twenty-five, and one full-growed woman from the city swore I must be thirty. I was big all over—had whiskers like steel wool. I sure wanted to see something besides LuVerne, Indiana, and that ain’t saying Indianapolis would of held me, neither.
So I lied about my age, and I joined the Army of the World.
Didn’t nobody cry. There wasn’t no flags, there wasn’t no bands. It wasn’t like in olden times, where a young boy like me’d be going away to maybe get his head blowed off for democracy.
Wasn’t nobody there at the depot but Ma, and Ma was mad. She thought the Army of the World was just for bums who couldn’t find respectable work nowheres.
Seems like yesterday, but that was back in the year two thousand and thirty-seven.
“You keep away from them Zulus,” Ma said.
“There’s more’n just Zulus in the Army of the World, Ma,” I told her. “There’s folks from ever country there is.”
But anybody born outside of Floyd County is a Zulu to Ma. “Well, anyways,” she