I’m reading Stud Terkel’s “The Good War”. I am entranced by this book, an oral history of World War II. Published in 1984, it simply records the words of veterans and others who were there. One amazing story after another. One theme that comes through is how many of them believe it was a good war, maybe the only one. It made me wonder if the USA has been in any wars since that qualify. I know my answer, what do the readers think?
P.S. My favorite part of the book so far: A casual reference to a speaker’s friend called Lowlife McCormick. Best name ever!
Update: The answer is here.
depends, I suppose, what you mean by ‘war’. Certainly, NATO going into Kosovo was a good idea (well, ethically), and the first Gulf War (except, of course, we basically created that), but the other big conflicts such as Korea and Viet Nam?
Its also going to be MUCH harder to have a ‘good war’ thanks to TV. Seeing what war is like is going to make celebrating it much harder.
Many people agree that World War I was a good war. Most of them don’t know what trench warfare and mustard gas are like.
‘Good War’ is moronic, and should be used primarily to identify chickenhawks.
‘Necessary War’ is much more accurate.
Or
‘Worth-the-horrific-price War’
Or
‘Must-be-won War’
Or
‘We Are Too Pathetic To Have Avoided It Even With Our Massive Levels Of Technology So We Damn Well Better Win It War’