Waging Our War, One Heart at a Time

As I may or may not have mentioned before, I work in a government archive where I visually traipse through military documents eight hours a day, five days a week. Much of what I process is mind numbingly boring (property records, mess hall menus, etc), but I also encounter a lot of gems: gems that send this lady’s writerly brain a-buzzing; after all, part of the writer-affliction is synthesizing disparate materials into a strangely ecumenical narrative. What I mean to say is, the following excerpt from the U.S. Army Center for Military History’s booklet titled “The Staff Ride” by William G. Robertson struck me as applicable to human interactions at large despite the fact that it specifically introduces the use of staff rides (mock-war exercises that expedite learning and help prepare cadets for the realities of combat). While you read what follows, as you start to nod off, just remember I’ll make it worth your while, my lovely readers.

“By its very nature, war is a highly complex affair with a virtually infinite number of variables. Conducted in a dynamic environment by human beings, themselves infinitely variable in personality and intellect, war is played out on the three-dimensional chessboard of terrain. That war is also highly emotional makes it especially difficult to replicate through theoretical formulations because the human variables are impossible to isolate and quantify exactly. Yet soldiers who are charged with the conduct of war must continually strive in peacetime to prepare themselves to wage it successfully. Direct personal experience is one guide, but this knowledge usually is limited in scope and is often in short supply. Theory provides one substitute for experience but alone is far from satisfactory. Not nearly so neat and clear-cut as theory, but far more illustrative of the complexity engendered by human factors in war, is military history. Carefully integrated into training, military history can go far to provide the vicarious experience of war needed to further the professional education of soldiers.”

So, let me break it down here. That nasty four letter word, L-O-V-E, is quite the “complex affair” and we as humans only make it harder with our ever changing ways; emotions run high, and our actions are dependent upon the metaphorical ground beneath our feet. Love is a battlefield (so says Pat Benatar), and we have to enter the firing line prepared, our minds sharp and our bags laden with theoretical ammunition; what better way to arm ourselves than with experience under our belt, because a strict diet of metaphysical pondering prepares no one for neither the miserable trenches nor the miraculously conquered hill in the War of Hearts waged but us all at some point in our lives. It’s the same theory behind the expression, “You don’t know until you try,” and it’s also the same reason no one is able to predict the course of a relationship merely because they’ve watched all six seasons of Sex and the City. But listening the the trials and tribulations of your peers and empathetically traversing their ups and downs alongside them can most definitely give you an advantage. As the booklet goes on to discuss:

“One of the most effective ways to enlist military history in the cause of professional military education is to study the operations of opposing forces in actual campaigns. Campaigns of any historical period are replete with valuable lessons for the professional soldier. Changes in technology and corresponding changes in doctrine render some of the lessons obsolete, especially those linked to minor tactics. But other lessons are timeless because they spring either from these universal lessons that are most important for officers who aspire to higher command and a true mastery of the art of war. During their careers most officers are exposed to these lessons in some way, often through a sterile list of maxims or principles to be committed to memory but neither fully analyzed nor understood. Such a method is inadequate to the ultimate purpose, that of so fixing in an officer’s mind both the principles and their circumstances that they will become second nature in time of crisis.”

So, as I was saying, it would be nice if we could learn from the mistakes and heartaches of others (whether they be our corporeal friends, or our television friend projections), but, ultimately, those lessons and those joys need to be seared into our the flesh of our minds for them to become real. Four years ago, traumatic events other disappointments in my life would have eviscerated me emotionally, but now I’m upset for a mere moment and then I brush my shoulders off a la Jay-Z and President Elect Barack Obama because I know this moment is just one part of the tide, ever in flux, and what doesn’t kill me now makes me stronger tomorrow, for the next poor bastard who attempts to take me on. Once that steely mindset is adopted, a logical approach to love can be attempted:

“Just as the study of military history provides universal lessons or principles, so too can it provide the means to best inculcate them in the minds of officers. One way is to relate the lessons or principles to specific historical case studies of particular campaigns or battles. For the best results, these case studies should not be superficial but should be as detailed as the circumstances of study permit. Only by studying a campaign or battle in detail is it possible to discover why events unfolded as they did. Further, if at all possible the campaign or battle should be studied through primary sources which provide both the required degree and the serious intellectual challenge to fully involve the mind of the student.”

Once you’ve seen your fair share of skirmishes, you can begin to analyze them and themes start to emerge. Are you too clingy, too stand-offish, too stubborn, too…anything? Or is it that you’re lacking in something? Or, possibly, you’re picking the wrong people with which to wage your war due to some deep rooted fear of commitment? After all, if these relationships never have a prayer of lasting you aren’t responsible for their inevitable collapse, right? Although you run the risk of seeing flaws that simply are not there, patterns don’t lie and their repetitive strokes can tell you a lot about yourself. However, this booklet has some advice for us on how to analyze our predicaments effectively, the soldiers of love:

“What the student (the professional soldier) must achieve is what German military theorist Karl von Clausewitz in On War defined as critical analysis: determine the facts, establish cause and effect, and analyze the results. In simpler terms, the soldier must find out what happened, establish why and how events occurred as they did, and decide what these cause and effect relationships mean now. It is the immediacy of this last element (the answer to the question, “So what?”) that makes this approach to battle analysis a peculiarly military endeavor. The effect of such analysis is synergistic in fostering not just lessons but deeper understanding the realities of war.

A significant component of the detailed study of a campaign or battle is an analysis of the terrain over which the action took place and the effect of that terrain upon the campaign or battle. Good maps are essential for such analysis, but the best maps are poor substitutes for firsthand knowledge of the terrain. Thus a visit to the actual sites associated with a campaign, if they are not too changed, is the ultimate step in analysis of the terrain’s effects on the action studied. If detailed historical case study encourages the identification of universal military lessons, then a visit to the actual site is the ultimate means of reinforcing these lessons in the minds of students. The combination of systematic historical study of a campaign with a visit to the site of operations for the purpose of professional military education is a staff ride.”

Load Your Weapons, Folks

Ultimately, you need to keep a cool head and viscerally experience the land of love in order to understand and survive the battles that are constantly waged on its terrain. Know yourself, steady your hand, and don’t be afraid to pull the trigger, but always stay focused on the larger picture, the larger unification of your mental and emotional well being. Yes, guitarists are sexy and fun, ladies, but will they really give you what you need? And yes, fellas, the girls with low self esteem and no opinions are easy to lead around, but will they really push you to be a better version of yourselves?

Aim. Cock. And Shoot. After all, they may say make love not war, but what those beautiful hippies may have meant is love the war that you make, and it will make the love that you need. Because…we’re young, and heartache to heartache…WE STAND.

POSTSCRIPT: Now that the philosophy is out of the way, I just used the phrases “staff ride” and “cock.” Please, feel free to comment on that, everyone!