“What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity,
What shall we say of the bones, unclean,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow?
The ragged arms, the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green?”
- Allen Tate
The Endless War
We are often reminded that the nation is at war. This would be unnecessary if it truly mattered. After nearly twenty years of global conflict, the tired refrain has made several evolutions: from a reminder to a platitude, and finally a slogan. For a war like this one- where strategy can only be articulated through careless bromides- the transformation is self-evident.
Indeed, Americans are at war in hellholes all across the globe, but you should be forgiven for failing to notice. It is impossible to know the contours of every front, especially those where so little is at stake. We are a people awash in conflict, after all. War-making may invade the most sacred corners of daily life, but it still binds us together. No need to head off to Afghanistan. Everyone can enlist. Everyone can be a warlord. Everyone is a hero.
Is it surprising that those who pick up a rifle are celebrated with the same shopworn praise reserved for drag queens, pornographers, and androgynous tufthunters? American heroism no longer bleeds, nor does it even sweat (unless out of desire). It has all been optimized. And thank the Lord above, too. Bloodless, sedentary courage is the fertile soil of progress. It not only pays the bills but can even buy you a house in Topanga Canyon.
The dumb bastards that do take up a rifle, wear that godawful uniform, and catch bullets for $1,900 a month, are an anachronism. They have not yet realized that Granddaddy might as well be a Nabataean, and that his tales of General Patton from the last good war might as well be an ode to al-Uzza. Such pitiful verve. Still waving a flag with only three colors and spilling blood in the name of a sinful past instead of a spotless future! What will they say when that terrible machinery so carefully constructed over decades finally reveals its face to the homeland and opens its claws wide?
The dead are concealed under clean, pearly rows. Their last moments titillate audiences who feast on popcorn like hogs at a trough. The tears of their wives and children rain silently down for a lifetime, long after the donors, fundraisers, and coffee-makers have had their fill. Their voices can still be heard from across the river long after they are gone, but only by their mothers- always a child’s jabbering- and by their brothers- the shout of a man.
This is where the Living Dead dwell, in that fallow space separating the quiet world of sprits from the land of holy wars, hog troughs, and palatial estates in Topanga Canyon. The former beckons and inspires, but it also shames. The latter only humiliates.
So what do we say for the Living Dead? What is their memorial? Perhaps a tranquil afternoon contains the answer, when it is so still a man can hear his own breathing and he feels the sun splashing down on his face. Perhaps in that moment he knows that he is, and will yet be. And there is no need for more.