The Weight of History

A thing happened to me when I lived in Washington D.C. that made me realize how old I have become. It also happened to be one of those things which, when it happens to you, you get the immediate and undeniable feeling that you'll always remember it so very clearly: the smell in the air around you will seem to hang the same way as it did at that moment, spiced with the scent of salt water taffy and old books.

It was too big to write about; the import of all these wars, their meaning to their participants and their inheritors. You can stare at the memorials and read up on the battles and acts of Congress, the soldiers, with their hawkish eyes. But I will never feel the foundation of a church thundered out by another country's planes. I will never have to care for or carry one of my countrymen, because he cannot walk, his legs stolen by an enemy mortar. We were at the Smithsonian American History Museum.

The war dedication is my favorite full-length exhibit, although it has every reason not to be. I hate the glory of war. Everything seems set to violin music, or to far away drums. When the throaty commentator on an audiobook tells you stories about these too-long wars, about the men who order them and who comprise them, you think of men with more grizzle and composure than you have, or ever will: and it almost must be that way. To at least somebody, a grainy picture is a hero, if he wears fatigues. I don't quite buy into it, but considering even my objection to it's actual practice, the influence of war is impossible to let alone, or even to undermine. As are the outrageous strength shown by some of its principle agents, foreign and domestic. As are, for a thinking man, its elegant, conciliatory alternatives, which I would favor categorically, and which are borne of compassion as much as calm; as much, even, as cowardice. You sit by the atomic bomb layout, and you think about your generation in every country: how many millions must die because of an argument? An impulse? An accident? An idea? How many today, and how many of their sons? How many brave?

The corner of the exhibit that is devoted to military action taken since the first Gulf War, it's hidden past a shadowy foyer with a drinking fountain and a man with two middle school daughters. The guardians of the present, these three whispy middle Americans. The dad is a balding man in his late forties, whose back looks like the part of a walking cane where your hand goes, and with just as much weight pushing down on him. His daughters were quiet, and narrowed their eyes as they found their words floating past them, in the air: ''But, why did they crash the planes like that?'' Old dad's mouth slanted down and touched the cold tile floor, and his forehead crinkled. He scratched an eyebrow, wondering whether or not a way to answer his girls even existed. They have a favorite movie, by now, and they know what they like having on their pizzas. Each girl has a best friend, each has a personality and an email address, a each has taken vitamins and has read Steinbeck. They have slang, pets, formalwear, secrets. Scars. Journals. Heroes. And they were too young to remember September 11 happening.