In
recent news U.S. President Barack Obama is talking about bringing soldiers in
Afghanistan home. Afghanistan is a country that has engaged the militaries and
billions of dollars of two super powers in two different decades with results
that have been less than satisfactory to this point.
It
may sound a little strange to ask this question but what passions does going to
war and fighting fulfill in men that these seemingly endless cycles of battle
persist?
If
we don’t know, how will we ever genuinely help young boys and men discover
passions that ultimately lead to their well-being, health and wholeness as
human beings, the goal most families and communities ultimately share around
the world.
Perhaps
part of the exploration includes examining our fascination with the power,
mastery and mystery involved in being a warrior.
As
a boy I was often prepared to identify opposing athletic teams as “the enemy”
rather than mere opponents in a game with structure, rules, goals and rewards.
Our coaches gave us “weapons” in the form of personal skill building and team building, then provided
adversity in which to test those in the form of games and tournaments. In some
of these games, our assigned goal was to “take our opponents out,” though that
did not mean total annihilation as it does in the millions of practice sessions
today’s youth have playing virtual games.
When
our team won, we felt powerful, masterful and reenacted our “war stories” over
and over. That may have included grudging admiration of some of our opponents
though they played bit parts in our exciting recounting of the drama.
We
are also fascinated with the power of destruction, especially when we seem to
be in command of its forces.
I
will never forget my first kill with a rifle. A single shot .22 with a jack
rabbit in the wrong place at the wrong time. The mystery of how a beating heart
can be so quickly stopped by such a simple act makes an indelible
impression. Suddenly, it’s no
longer a game, it’s about life and death.
In
a 2007 Oscar-nominated documentary film, Operation Homecoming: Writing the
War-Time Experience, published writers, some of them famous, assist veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan to write about their experiences. The passions that drive
men to battle become more and more clear with each added voice introduced
during the film. The stated
reasons for going to war shift as the real experience of battle hurls men (and
women) into the most violent and chaotic situations they’d ever encountered.
What
begins to emerge through these powerful and moving narratives is that the
concept of honor and patriotism begin to take a backseat to the soldiers real
human needs to belong to each other, back each other up, take care of each
other, and stay connected in the face of life threatening danger.
So
far in my career employing The Passion Test as the premier tool for discovering
men’s passions, I’ve not yet met a man for whom close relationships, the desire
to belong to something greater than himself, the desire to have a powerful
influence on his world were not somewhere on his list.
As
it turns out, those men whose lives were shaped and directed in such a way that
military service and war-time experience seemed the best means for achieving
personal power, mastery and sense of belonging are no different than anyone
else.
For
me the question becomes: If war is a means of fulfilling passions whose
ultimate end can be sacrificing one’s life, are there equally powerful and
compelling means that provide the warrior experience that don’t necessitate the
tremendous toll in human lives, environmental and social destruction and the
whole sale draining of an economy?
What
would it look like to replace a war-based economy with a passion-based economy?
And what fundamental human needs could be fulfilled that are now too often
fulfilled through endless and dehumanizing battle?
The
answers lie within the hearts of men when given a real choice and alternatives.
Check out Operation Homecoming at:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/crossroads/about/show_operation_homecoming.html
