Fort Lewis Soldier Convicted of Grisly Afghan Murders

Back when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day, the holiday had a very different tone. After World War I, pacifism, anti-militarism and anti-imperialism became popular in reaction to the conflict's carnage. The anniversary of the cease-fire ending the war became a day on which people around the world pledged to those who had suffered and died that never again would we sacrifice a generation to the kind of death-worshipping nationalism that killed over 15 million between 1914 and 1918, and left millions more pained by physical and psychological wounds.

From 45 miles south of Seattle, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, we are reminded again this Veterans Day of the horrors of war. Sergeant Calvin Gibbs of the Fifth Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division was convicted yesterday of acting as the ringleader of a group of soldiers serving in Afghanistan who, according to military prosecutors, became completely untethered from any recognizable moral code of conduct. Gibbs's "rogue" group killed Afghan civilians for sport, planting weapons on their victims' bodies to avoid detection. Some soldiers, including Gibbs himself, took macabre human trophies- teeth and fingers. Ashamed, Gibbs described his ghoulish behavior as "like taking antlers from a deer," saying he had "disassociated" the corpses from humanity. Other members of the unit admitted to smoking hashish while in the field, although Gibbs was allegedly sober throughout the period in which the murders occurred. The Sergeant was sentenced to life in prison for the crimes.

War can defend vital interests or noble ideals. War can lend weak, venal politicians the swagger of sober, serious statesmen, and give armchair tough-guys fodder for their Tom Clancy fanatasies. We can all grasp part of the obvious dark side of war- soldiers die, the innocent suffer, and entire nations can be ruined, but we sometimes neglect to mention the horror- the moral and psychological damage it does to all of us, particularly those at the front, when we engage in organized mass killing. What Sergeant Gibbs and his men did is as much a part of war as patriotism, heroism and self-sacrifice. In fact, the concept of sacrificing for one's country is only about 200 years old, whereas our ancient ancestors were putting heads on stakes and eating the hearts of dead warriors before recorded history. When people all around the world first fixed poppies to their lapels in 1918, it was in remembrance of those we lost, but also as part of a promise to those who survived: that never again would we be so callous in exposing our young soldiers to the kind of horror that touched Sergeant Gibbs and his men.

In wartime, we ask our soldiers to do things no human should have to do, and see things no human should have to see. Veterans Day is a time to thank them for meeting the challenge, but it's also a time to look forward to a future in which we don't ask the same of their children.