A People's History of War by Ethan

A People's History of War by Ethan - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

If I was a professor, I would teach a class on the history of warfare. There’s an old expression that military history doesn’t repeat itself, but often “rhymes” in the sense that the individual places, equipment and names change, but the motivations, strategies, and stories aren’t that different now than they were thousands of years ago. The ultimate goal for my class would be learning to understand, because if we can deconstruct war and see it from the human perspective, war would cease to exist.

Take, for example, the Roman legionary that slogged through Teutoburg in 9 AD. Temporally, geographically, and culturally, they could not be more different than the American infantryman in 1960’s Vietnam. For the men that fought in these conflicts, their emotions of fear, desire, and hope were probably the same. Fighters from these 2 periods were separated by two thousand years, yet, their enemy probably who viewed them with the same disdain, utilized the same tactics, and ultimately won under very similar circumstances.

I would examine both the big picture of conflict, as well as explore the more personal side of individual combatants and civilians. For example, it would be fascinating to study and look at the thirteen year old boy from a rural village in Iraq and how he is ultimately recruited by Al-Qaeda. I would want to understand and track his arguably “normal” upbringing, and tragic descent into extremism. I would also want to explore the flip side of that story – like what makes a young teen growing up in Middle America, want to fight in a place he has never known, killing people he never knew. Lastly, I would also explore the leaders of war to ask and answer questions like, “what makes a good leader?” and “what was their critical fault?”

It is important to recognize that there is nothing really “new” when it comes to conflict, but learning about our past is one way to make sense of the events as they unfold around us today. Ultimately, understanding why it is we fight, helps us to learn how to end fighting. Only through understanding war and conflict, can we ultimately reach peace.