The idea of perpetual conflict is nothing new. But the reality of it is here. And it’s not leaving anytime soon.
The first time I heard “Forever War” was back in 2006. I’d just assumed my role as platoon leader for a cavalry scout platoon based out of Hawaii, and was trying my best not to be that lieutenant. So basically — don’t be a jackass, watch, learn to see how it’s done.
Such is the life of the butterbar.
After a training mission, the topic came up of what the end goal of our upcoming tour would be. I recited some battalion talking points about stability and economic growth, a return to normalcy, blah blah. Our platoon sergeant did something similar. Then one of the Joes raised his hand and said, earnest as a sculpture, “I really don’t know what that means, though.”
“Christ, Private,” said one of the platoon’s section leaders, a staff sergeant built like a bulldog who spoke with a deep cotton twang. “This be the Forever War, son. It’s gonna go for…you guessed it, forever. So we go in there, make it a little better for the next guys. That’s it. That’s the job.”
All these years later, I still remember wishing the battalion talking points had carried something that succinct and clear for brand-new lieutenants to consult.
That memory — over a decade old now, Allah H. Christ — returned to me this fall when Defense Secretary and retired Marine general James Mattis (he much prefers the nickname Chaos to Mad Dog, you dig?) told Congress, point blank, that withdrawing fully from Afghanistan would result in another 9/11-style attack. The candor, the honesty, was something to behold, even if the message was depressing and terrible and everything in between. No euphemisms like “cutting the grass” or “slow burn” or “bug zapper.” Just his assessment as a man devoted to our nation’s defense, straight and true.
Still, though — if that’s the case, what’s a mini-surge of 5,000 or so additional troops going to solve? I also adore another Mattis quote about history not being a straitjacket, but that whole Afghanistan-being-the-graveyard-of-empires thing isn’t just an axiom. Is even asking about an end-state there now out of the question? Guess so, since no member of Congress felt inclined to follow up. Forever War lasts…you guessed it. Forever.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the capital, the Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, told a national military convention that, “We are training, advising, and assisting indigenous armies all over the world, and I expect that will increase and not decrease.”
Milley went on to say that it’s almost a certainty that “advise and assist” missions will persist and endure — i.e., there’s not a tipping point or a plateau, at least not one in sight at present.
That’s the Chief of Staff for the entire Army speaking there, not the commander of SOCOM or something. It’s general-speak for This small war/counter-guerrilla/counterinsurgency/counterterror shit ain’t going away anytime soon. And he’s talking worldwide — not just official combat zones like Afghanistan. It’s one thing for special operations to have footprints across the globe. It’s quite another for Big Army to be doing and prepping for that.
About a week after those comments by General Milley, four Green Berets on a joint patrol in Niger were killed by ISIS-affiliated terrorists. Two more of our own were wounded. Raise your hand if you knew we had troops in Niger “supporting” the war on terror and I’ll show you A) a liar, B) a spook, or C) one of those NatSec goofs who spends way too much time on Twitter.
So, The Forever War endures. Call it whatever you want — “advise and assist” seems to be the term of the moment, though I’m sure there’s a major in the Pentagon bowels hard at work to coin the next great neologism.
And while it’s not actually going to last forever, it’ll at least be generational, if not multigenerational. We’re already seeing signs of its corrosive effect on our society and culture back home. How else to explain a commander in chief telling a grieving Gold Star widow “he knew what he signed up for” in the aftermath of one of those Green Berets’ deaths?
Leaving aside further thoughts on the president’s utterance, unfortunately, what Trump said conveyed a perspective not much different from what a lot of Americans feel toward servicemembers. Respect, sure, but also detachment.
The term itself, “Forever War,” has its origins in a book. No, not Dexter Filkins’ superb 2008 journalistic account of Iraq and Afghanistan, The Forever War. Filkins himself got the term from a 1974 science fiction novel of the same name, written by Joe Haldeman.
Haldeman’s novel chronicles a multigenerational interstellar war between humankind and a mysterious alien species known as the Taurans. It’s a dark, funny, not-so-subtle allegory for Vietnam, where Haldeman had served as a combat engineer and earned a Purple Heart. Turns out, we’re not the first generation to wrestle with questions of a perpetual conflict being waged abroad for unclear objectives. Nor was the Vietnam generation, for that matter. Maybe it’s all the same Forever War. Who fucking knows.
As I was finishing up this article, I Facebook-messaged the staff sergeant who first introduced me to the term “Forever War” way back when. He didn’t remember the specific training mission, but he remembers using the term and educating privates with it. He’s retired now, having earned a little calm after 20-plus years of service in the Green Machine.
I asked him, “How do you feel about it all now, a decade later, as a civilian?”
“I got a son who’s 15,” he wrote back. “Wish I’d been wrong about that forever thing, you know?”
