It seems that people go to war in a manner almost entirely dictated by the accident of the timing and geography of their birth. If I were a young Afghan man in 1979, the odds that I would end up fighting against the Soviet invasion would be near total if I were in all other ways normally fit for Afghan military service. Conversely, were I a young Soviet man in 1979, I would have fought against the Afghans. Exceptions to this rule certainly exist, and they are interesting as hell, but they are not statistically significant.

Think of the young man coming into manhood in Germany in the late 1930’s. This incredibly unfortunate circumstance would have placed him in the German Army during World War II. And he would have been marching in a German uniform almost no matter who he was prior to 1939–and that’s the scary part. The fact that he was there, then, was dispositive. It almost never matters significantly to the building of an Army that any given Soldier was a nice guy, or a bad guy, a hawk, or a dove. The forces of culture, peer pressure, and generally innate local loyalty ensured that Napoleon, Hitler, and Westmoreland had all the Soldiers they needed to conduct war on a massive scale.

There is not much evidence that this will change; as recently as today Americans went to Afghanistan and/or Iraq because of where and when they were born. The guy who grows up on a farm in Iowa doesn’t decide that there is an African Civil War he’d feel better about being involved in versus America’s engagements unless he’s a mercenary. Mercenaries are few and far between. Instead, Austin Farmboy goes and fights on America’s behalf in Afghanistan because he graduated High School in some nice little town in Iowa in 2018.

Let’s first distinguish between whether someone goes to war at all versus whose team they end up on. Lots of people don’t go to war at all for various reasons: unfit medically or mentally, too old or too young, ineligible due to gender, or just never conscripted and therefore preferred to do, and did, other things with their lives. Of course, faced with conscription, some get out of going to war due to corrupt reasons: with the help of connections, or fraud, or financial status. But these evasion of service cases added up don’t materially affect any war. (Someone is sent in their place, someone else whose accident of birth is appropriate for the war.)

Focusing now on those who do go to war, let’s picture how it typically goes down. Let’s take an Australian guy in World War I. In Australia, 38.7 % of the male population aged 18-44 enlisted for service in support of the British Empire and against the Germans. Why? Because their uncle at the dinner table was blustering triumphantly that the Germans would finally get what they deserved. Because Grandpa fought with the British in the Boer War at the turn of the century and was wounded! (There’s his service rifle still over the fireplace right there; he let me hold it once.) Because all the young men have been walking about town looking importantly at each other and discussing which Regiment to join. Because, especially because, his Ma and little sister are terrified; and that makes you know that you are suddenly important. Because Regiments and uniforms and guns and ‘doing your part’ suddenly crystallize colorfully in the air over the drab landscape of crops being harvested and sent on coal-fired ships elsewhere. Because Australia pledged support to the British Empire and By God, the Australians won’t let them down. Because Governor-General Thomas Denman, (3rd Baron Denman Ronald Munro Ferguson), is making an important radio announcement tonight and everyone in town will be gathered in groups listening.

That’s why they went to war, and not because of any protracted thoughtful analysis of the morals, ethics and values involved. They simply went with the home team and reaped the respect of their peers and communities.

Substitute the time and place and we’ve seen this drama play out similarly for centuries. So, why point out this embarrassing fact? Because it’s time to talk about the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. Alabama, April, 1862.* Fort Sumter has just fallen. Jedediah Farmboy from Alabama is going to wear a Confederate uniform for all the aforementioned reasons: His uncle, his grandfather, what Regiment should I join, Ma is worried but I’ll make her proud. Sure- arguments over slavery, state’s rights, economics, and all manner of indignation over politics got discussed at the General Stores, North and South, but these issues and discussions didn’t materially affect the makeup of the Regiments. A Georgian Regiment was made up of Georgia boys and a Maine Regiment was comprised of Maine boys.

So, if we accept all this, how can we tear down statues of Confederate Generals, and the states they represented, when we know that they did what they did by accident of birth and then generally tried to carry out their mission with all the honor and bravery they could muster? Especially when we know that Joshua Chamberlain himself would have fought for the Confederacy were he born in Mississippi instead of Maine? People usually give two reasons: “Well, the Confederates were all traitors.” But, our founding fathers were traitors to their country and we can’t get enough statues of them. “Well, the Confederates lost.” But, we lost in Vietnam (and elsewhere) and we haven’t torn down our memorials to the Vietnam War in every town.

Sure, slavery was so bad that we shouldn’t endorse it in any form. But, how far down that chain do we go? Do we abolish every knicknack, song, or favorite southern food that is reminiscent of the Confederacy? Trust me, the Civil War is barely over and insulting the history, honor and sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of people who had to go to war by accident of birth will probably backfire, and soon.

People who revere the statues and flags of the Confederacy due to their own racial bigotry against blacks won’t convert because some of their favorite symbols are attacked. To the contrary.

And people who revere the statues and flags of the Confederacy due to southern military honor and family history will feel the caprice and hypocrisy of the moment and won’t forget it.

I wish, for the life of me (pun intended) that the original signs and placards of the current movement had said “Black Lives Matter Too” and that the movement was called Black Lives Matter Too. The amount of stumbling around on the meaning of this short phrase has caused a lot of unnecessary angst; the worst of this is that so many people are accused of racism when they are simply the victim of an expectation to make a secondary level of analysis that they are readily capable of making were they aware of the expectation.

For example, let’s say that I wanted to start a movement and I called it “Alcoholics Like Ice-Cream.” Most people would find the phrase lacking in power or gravity because they would immediately realize that all people like ice-cream: children, Eskimos, college students, criminals, and mountain climbers. Many wouldn’t as quickly realize that the phrase attaches to a special struggle wherein many alcoholics in early sobriety efforts become addicted to sweets as a kind of ‘replacement’ addiction. They might even think that alcoholics might be just trying to carve out a special status for themselves by saying that they like ice-cream more than others, and are therefore more special. This morning, in my AA meeting, someone mentioned how they had a candy bar the other day and immediately found themselves thinking ‘Where is my next candy bar coming from?’ This remark caught us all just the right way and we all laughed longer and deeper than most people would because we identify so strongly -more than most- with addiction dynamics because we are alcoholics.

Similarly, I’m guessing most blacks didn’t stumble over the meaning of the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter.’ But many of us, my white self included, did stumble, and just didn’t get it until someone said to us, or it eventually occurred to us, that what the signs mean is that black lives matter too, and that American society and justice mechanisms currently discount the lives of blacks compared to whites. Then the light came on, and of course I recognized the issue quite as much as any sentient being would be expected to and I now get that it is a great slogan for this movement-just a little unclear at first grammatically. Not unclear racially. It wasn’t racism that made me think ‘Wait…all lives matter’, it was grammar construction.

I would like to have have been enlightened enough to have ‘gotten’ it initially, and there is a special reason why I should have: I am a poet, and have long known that poems carry special power, and that the first layer of power in a poem, before you get to the interpretation of the words, is the simple fact that the words and thoughts in a poem are framed and presented in poetic format and therefore purport to carry poetic power. Thereafter, the poem may succeed or fail upon its merit, but the initial expectation is that there is going to be something special here that might want to be analyzed beyond face value. I approach, and indeed write, every poem with the expectation of a second level of analysis, and that a set of words arranged in a poem merit that. Therefore, since these three words -Black Lives Matter- were specifically ‘framed’, perhaps I should have asked myself why the emphasis is on black lives in the movement’s slogan when in fact it is obvious that all lives matter. Alas, I did not, and just knee-jerked to wonder how the movement’s organizers didn’t see that all lives matter. The super irony here is that the organizers not only saw that all lives matter, but that it is because all lives matter that attention must be drawn to the issue of black lives because they arguably don’t seem to matter as much as other lives in America as judged by police behavior, incarceration dynamics, and racism in its myriad forms in our culture.

I would like to rebut here the assumption that I’m blaming the victim by saying that there is a problem with the wording when I should be addressing racism itself. I also recognize that many people might be saying ‘All Lives Matter’ in a racist way, or that white privilege might be driving some of the indignation against the slogan. Interestingly, I can usually tell by the demeanor of the person the intent of their objection. But, in my experience, I think most people that said initially, or still say, ‘all lives matter,’ do so over this misunderstanding that I am so painfully exploring in this piece. And that is good news. I wish merely to illustrate an exacerbation that need not be added to an already difficult situation.

And there is more good news. Whether the grain of sand in the oyster is intentional or not, it does produce a pearl: the slogan is an irritant that caused me to have some long conversations about racism in America and I hope that such conversations continue everywhere. It matters.