Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell is an interesting man—a man of passion, integrity, ideas, and conviction, and most certainly a hero. I met LTC Birdwell over the summer in Austin, TX.
Birdwell came to the national attention in 2001 as the closest living survivor to the plane that struck the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Following the attack, Birdwell, who had lost over 60% of this skin to the ensuing fire, required over thirty surgeries over an extended stay at the Washington Burn Center. While there, he received a visit that became the subject of a “too good to be true” chain e-mail that turned out to be true.
Three days after the attack, President Bush paid a visit to the burn center. After talking with Birdwell and his wife, Mel, for a short time, the President faced Birdwell—heavily bandaged and barely conscious—and saluted him. In 15 seconds that no doubt played out like an eternity, Birdwell slowly returned his commander-in-chief’s salute as everyone in the room’s—the President and First Lady included—eyes filled with tears. (It is interesting to note here that, out of respect, it is always the inferior soldier who initiates the salute, and holds it until his commanding officer retunes the gesture.)
Birdwell now speaks around the country on his expeience and view on the War on Terror.
I recently heard Birdwell being interviewed on WallBuilders Live, during which he said something I’ve heard him say several times before: Casualties in war are not a measure of success or failure but a measure of cost.
It seems like whenever I mention my support for the troops and their mission, someone has to bring up the body count. “How can you support the war? Almost four-thousand Americans have come home in bags in just five years! How many more Americans need to die?”
I’ve always found this argument to be specious, but LTC Birdwell’s quote gives what I was feeling concision, authority, and timeliness.
We lost over 117,500 men in World War I. We were involved for two years.
We lost over 418,500 men in World War II. We were involved for four years.
We lost over 50,000 men in Korea. We were involved for three years.
We lost close to 60,000 men in Vietnam, with many more still missing. We were there for a decade.
In those four wars, we lost 58,750, 103,750, 18,000, and 6,000 men per year (respectively).
In each of these conflicts, we lost more men per year then we’ve lost during our entire time in Iraq. Were these wars unjust too? Okay maybe Vietnam was, and maybe even Korea, but what about World War II? We were the victims of a provocative act of terror. An entire race was being systematically eliminated. Europe was slowly being taken over by despots and demagogues. Was there more to the conflict than the body count?
418,000 servicemen killed in the line of duty over the course of four years—that’s about 300 a day.
In our four-year engagement in the Second World War, we liberated a people and overthrew a dictator with imperialistic aspirations. Its cost? Close to 300 servicemen a day.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a tragedy, but does that make it unjust. The casualty count in World War II was a gauge of the pervasive evil in the world and a measure of the fallen world we live in.
The same is true in Iraq. There are a half dozen reasonable arguments for why the war is unjust—I don’t believe most of them, but they’re reasonable. A body count is not one.
