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Some years
ago I recall a series on TV, which had some old guy who always
managed to ask the goofiest questions I’ve ever heard. One I
happen to remember went something like…”If you carpeted Florida,
how long would it take to vacuum it?”
Now, as you can imagine, there just
doesn’t seem to be any logical answer to something as absurd as
that, is there? Normally the conversations in my house don’t
involve illogical discussions such as this one except for today. I
just walked in this morning and announced to my significant other
that I was driving to New Orleans next weekend with a group of
guys to go and visit the D-Day museum that opened a few years ago.
We thought with school starting and vacations being over, the
summer heat dying down…. this would be the perfect time of the
year to see this attraction for ourselves.
She didn’t say anything about my plans
for almost four or five hours. Then, this afternoon as we were
sitting on the porch drinking some iced tea, she asked one of
those illogical questions that I don’t know how to answer. “Why”
she asked…”Do grown men want to visit battlefields, war memorials
and watch old war movies?” Now, if you’ve read these columns for
any length of time, you know there is hardly anything that shuts
me down to the point where I don’t have a comment. I groped for a
quick answer to her question, but try as I might, I couldn’t think
of one right off hand. War, battlefields, memorials seem to be of
continuing interest to men from the time we were little boys until
we die for some reason or another.
My wife went on to ask, “Since you
weren’t there, is it because you’re glad you weren’t there, wish
you had been there? Or you don’t know?” I had to admit I think
it’s probably a combination of all three. I was in the Army, went
to Korea, but not during wartime and the dangers I faced were
probably due to my own stupidity rather than some hostile force
belonging to some enemy nation. Once I nearly kicked a land mine
thinking it was a tin can, but was stopped by a Captain, who was
much wiser than me at the time. I was in the Atlantic when the
Cuban missile crisis came up and we were preparing to invade Cuba
and stood a good chance of being nuked. Thousands of other kids
were there with me, so I don’t feel that it was what anyone would
call an actual ‘combat’ situation. Bottom line is I never felt
like someone was shooting at me. When I was a cop I was shot at a
few times, but then again, it kind of came with the job. It didn’t
seem like a big deal to me then and still doesn’t. Why do men seem
to be fascinated with war and the history of war? Try as I might I
couldn’t really answer her question at that time. I told her I
thought it had to do with the way men feel about things.
Perhaps it’s similar to the way women
feel about fabrics or wallpaper. She had wanted me to go to some
store to look at some floor tile yesterday, I begged off since
floor tile doesn’t offer much interest to me. But you know, the
more I thought about her questions the more intriguing they
became. Why do we go to places that display death and destruction?
Do men have a ghoulish mindset that women aren’t endowed with? No,
I truthfully believe we are interested in warfare for several
reasons. First….our visits honor those who fought for our freedoms
in this country that we hold dear. Secondly, perhaps we feel a
small bit of guilt because we weren’t there to help, no matter how
old or young we were at the time. Lastly, maybe we want to go and
keep refreshed in our minds just how terrible and horrible war is
and how damaging it is to the human race. I’m certain someone out
there has written a book or a study on this difference between men
and women. I’d certainly be interested in learning what makes us
this way…not that I’d like to change…I still don’t think looking
at floor tile is very exciting.
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