A Death in the Family: Hitchens Brings the War Home (to his House)
Even more ink has been spilled over the war in Iraq than blood has been shed (and that’s saying a lot). So it is not a small thing when I say that a recent essay by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair magazine is the most interesting, most provocative, most powerful piece I have read about the war in some time. (Second, probably, only to Martha Raddatz’s amazing book, “The Long Road Home.”)
Hitchens’ article (available here) is only partly about the war. It reports the story of a young man, Mark Daily of Irvine, California, who was inspired, in significant part, by something Hitchens wrote to enlist in the army in order to serve in Iraq. Daily was killed in action in Mosul.
Whatever you might think of Hitchens and his other writings, including his controversial indictment of religion (God is Not Great), it is hard not to be moved by his recollection of hearing about Daily’s death, and, especially, by his encounter with Daily’s family.
Too often, war, and death in wartime, are an abstraction. All the more so for those of the commentating class. The power of Hitchen’s Vanity Fair article is in forcing us to come to grips with the implications of our own statements and opinions. It should be required reading not just for policy makers, but for those of us who play other roles in the public debate as well.