Snowballs Are Not Bullets

For the longest time I've been wanting to write a post about the awesome snowball fights I took part in as a kid. I'd been waiting for that right moment to write about the epic battles between the kids from Lillian Wald and Jacob Riis Houses. I wanted to recount the glory of charging South across East 6th Street as the snowballs were flying to get behind the "Wald" lines and route them from their positions. Oh it was glory alright. That is until our feet got cold and someone said, "this is stupid. I quit."

It dawned on me that I was making false analogies of my snowball fighting experiences as a kid to war to score a humorous, if not hyperbolic point. Let me explain.

These snowball fights took place outside the Boys Brotherhood Republic club -- known to most in the 'hood as the BBR. After a heavy snowfall, it didn't take long for the fight to begin once the BBR closed its doors for the night. As we walked out ready for "battle", one of the counselors -- be it Fred, Sonny or Richie -- would warn us about the dangers of throwing snow balls. "Those things are ice," they would say. "Someone could lose an eye." They were right, of course, but we tossed them anyway. No sense in wasting good packing snow. And, as far as we knew, no one ever had lost an eye.

But memories can be a tricky thing, particularly the further we move away from them. In the 1970s, it was simply a good time. East 6th Street -- the block dividing the two housing projects -- was not seen as a war zone. Our battle gear was not cammos and kevlar, but parka overcoats with faux fur on the hood, a wool seaman's cap, and a pair of warm water-proof ski gloves that looked like surplus of NASA-issued moon gear. We did wear combat boots, though; but these were the steel-tipped kind from Army-Navy store that my parents could barely afford.

It just didn't seem right to equate snowball fights with actual war, particularly when we we've lost many good men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I have and affinity for war movies and books. Some of my favorites are The Longest Day, Platoon, and Saving Private Ryan. I've read The Art of War and several books by the military historian, John Keegan. I loved watching The World at War documentaries and was glued to the TV set for Ken Burns' The Civil War. I'm drawn to these war stories because they talk to my testosterone-laden, "Spartacus" side. I find stories of heroism, courage and self-sacrifice irresistibly appealing in the way a moth is drawn to a bug light.

But this vicarious war experience comes nowhere close to the real experience of combat. I've never had a bullet whiz past my ear or felt the concussion of a roadside IED. I've never seen a bloodied mangled corpse or heard the anguish cries of the mortally wounded. After my snowball fights, I walked home with my limbs attached, with my sanity intact, and with the knowledge that a warm bath and a cup of hot chocolate were waiting for me. I know what a snowball fight is. I don't know combat.

And not from a lack of trying either.

I've known several combat veterans in my life. Most were more than happy to recount everything I wanted to know about their time in the service. I learned about the units they were in and where they served. I heard all about the rigors of basic training and all the fun they had on leaves. But when the subject got to killing, you could hear a pin drop. "Let's talk about something else," they would say.

I can't say I blame them.

My father-in-law, John Nilon, who died in 2001, was just such a man. He fought in the Second World War and one of my favorite stories he told was when he was busted from sergeant to private by his commanding officer for smoking a cigarette on a pile of live ammunition. He served in the 821st Tank Destroyer Battalion (attached to the 29th Infantry Division) which fought it's way through the hedge rows of Normandy in the weeks after D-Day. He told me about the time he lost some of his hearing when his tank was hit by enemy fire. But it wasn't until a few months ago that I learned he won a Purple Heart. You get one of these for being wounded or killed in battle. He was proud of his service, but he never talked about the killing. Again, I don't blame him.

After all, isn't that what war is really about? Killing? Regardless of whether the fight is justified or not -- whether the reason is "to protect us from our enemies", or to "steal their oil", to the men and women in a combat zone, there's no glory in the fight. Even the combat veterans waving to us in Memorial Day parades from their perch in the Cadillac convertible would just as soon keep the memory of cutting down an enemy with an M50 to themselves. What they would probably say is that war is not fun; that there is no glory in battle, and that snowballs are not bullets.

As I wrote this, fellow blogger, Wyldth1ng, was on the back of my mind. I know he's there doing a job for which he volunteered, and I am honored by his courage and grateful for his sacrifice. But if it's all the same to him, I'd rather say this when he's stateside after we run the neo-conservative cowards from office. Get home safe Wyld. There's a frosty one here in New York with your name on it.

***Update 1/14/08 - 7:54AM****
It never snowed last night. Not one flake. I wish I could say the same about the war.