We grow a little weary of hearing our Western leaders say — as they march off on their latest Boys’ Own Adventure in some distant, dusty land — that they’ll “do whatever it takes”.
It’s a phrase that’s worth closer examination — particularly when you visit the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam.
The story of the tunnels almost defies belief. They were built when US forces were bombing the bejesus out of the Vietcong stronghold of Cu Chi, near Saigon, and also unloading unused bombs on their way home to base. This didn’t actually accomplish much, except to render the whole area an uninhabitable death trap. So the Vietnamese went underground, lock, stock and barrel…or, more precisely, man, woman and child.
They lived there, they died there. And a lot more besides.
There were workshops where they sewed uniforms. There was power generated by bicycles, and forges and machine shops where they turned unexploded mines and scraps of military hardware into some of the most fiendish man-traps imaginable.
There were, of course, kitchens. Which raises the question of smoke (as at least one visitor inevitably does). The solution was tiny tunnels, only about as thick as your arm, but so long that by the time any smoke escaped it was far, far away from its source. Even so, they cooked only once a day, in the early morning, when the whole area is blanketed in heavy low-lying mist which camouflaged the smoke.
There were hospitals, too…and not just for the wounded. Malaria killed many. Babies were born down there, and grew up, and sometimes died, without ever having seen the sun.
The tunnels were relatively safe: they were incredibly well hidden, far too small for most Americans to penetrate, and comprehensively booby-trapped. So by and large the people down there survived. In those underground chambers they worked, slept, cooked their meals, raised their children, recovered from their wounds — or didn’t — and sneaked out at night to scavenge for supplies and set booby traps.
They didn’t know when the war would end, or if it ever would — they were simply prepared to stay down there, with the rats and the snakes and the scorpions, for as long as it took.
And what it took was seven long, dark years. So there’s that thing again: “whatever it takes”.
For most of human history, there was a realistic acceptance that a soldier’s job is to kill or be killed. But we live in a time when every soldier’s death is a national tragedy, every wounded serviceman is a hero, and disgruntled reservists protest at being put in harm’s way.
This isn’t to belittle their sacrifice, or their courage. But their leaders, not having really grasped the “whatever it takes” thing, send them to a death that’s futile because victory is optional, strategy is fluid, objectives are always subject to review, and sometimes it all just gets too hard. “Sorry, guys — especially you dead ones — but we’ve re-examined our priorities, re-calculated our resources, and we’re outta here.”
They say they’re prepared to do whatever it takes, without the faintest idea of what that really means. It’s half a century since Western democracies won a war, and it’s conceivable that they never will again. Because the winner will be the one who really is prepared to do…whatever it takes.