Not all who serve are at the point of the spear, contrary to what the current Defense Secretary is trying to do. In fact, modern warfare simply is not possible without the nurse and the truck drivers and medics and other support soldiers.

So far this year, some stories from the shaft of the spear this year.

From an interview of Margaret Jennings-Manzi, members of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps who served on the hospital ship USAHS Seminole during WWII:

On another Atlantic crossing, an incident with a German submarine gave the two nurses a strange and uneasy feeling. They recalled seeing a German U-boat periscope observing the burial at sea of a soldier who had died on the Seminole. (There was no morgue on the ship, so burials of patients who died had to be conducted at sea.) “It was a very strange feeling, but we had a red cross on our ship that they honored. They weren’t going to attack a hospital ship. We never sailed within a convoy, because convoys could be attacked . . . so we sailed by ourselves.”

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There were other encounters, not so benign, with the enemy. Both women described being bombed and strafed by a German plane while the Seminole took on wounded soldiers from a pier in Naples harbor. It was at night, and the Seminole, along with the other ships docked at the pier, was operating under blackout conditions. “There was no moon that night, but Mount Vesuvius was overflowing with lava. The light from the volcano was unbelievably bright. They [the German aircraft] could pick out the ships, but couldn’t tell by the shapes what they were. He missed us by three feet on one side. We knew he had a second bomb, and we knew he would come back, so we all stood in the middle of the ship. Some were saying their prayers. When he dove again, we were quite sure we were going to get it, but he missed and dropped it again on the side of the ship. He strafed us as he went by. He never did hit us. No one was hurt.” Jennings-Manzi remembered thinking, “my mother would kill me if I got killed.” The two friends also remembered their ship coming under another attack off the coast of North Africa near Bizerte.

From an interview of Michael Borchardt, an Army truck driver during the Vietnam War:

Gun truck is a premade— not premade, made by GIs. The government did not make any. The GIs actually made them in Vietnam, fabricated them themselves. They were made from everything from just steel sides. And the more fancier ones, somebody decided to take a five-ton cargo, take the tracks off an APC and mount it on the back of a five-ton cargo.

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The one experience that I remember most—We were going there one day; it was after a four-day monsoon and the rice patties were full almost up to the road. And we get to this one place where there’s this real small, narrow bridge. You know the Vietnam kids are standing there and looking down in the water. So I’m up high in the truck, so I can see. There’s a pilot, obviously a helicopter pilot or a gunner, laying face-down in the water, obviously dead. He’s still got his helmet on with the radio and stuff. So I radioed back to tell my company or headquarters that there’s a GI in the water here. Do we have permission to get him out? They wouldn’t let us touch him; they were afraid he was booby-trapped. So they obviously sent somebody in to get him, so I don’t know if he was shot down out of a helicopter, or fell out, or who he was. Those are the things that kind of bother you; you wonder who he was. Was he ever recovered then?

And from an interview with Rachelle M. Halaska, who served as an Army medic in Iraq:

No, that was back more when I was living in the tent city while they were getting FOB Hunter ready to go. That was then. And then because we were getting all of our deployment pay and everything, everyone was feeling very rich so we gave the tour guide, each of us gave the tour guide like twenty to forty bucks which is a lot in Iraqi currency. So he was very, very happy with us as well. Because he did a great job and it was just an amazing experience to have overall. And also, when I was on guard duty— this is just going back to guard duty, small little detail—we had—there was a dog who had befriended the unit there. He was a wild dog so just an out and about wild dog, but he had figured out that the Americans will give dogs hamburgers and so he would—his name was Phoenix and so he was just a black fluffy dog. And one day I was—one night I was on guard duty and no one had told me about Phoenix and so I’m just sitting there and all of a sudden there’s this dog who is standing in the doorway looking at me like, “Hey, lady” and I’m just like, “Ahhh, get out of here.” And he’s just like, “What?” and kind of trots away.

And they told me, “Oh, no, that’s Phoenix. He’s basically our dog here. He lets us know if anyone’s coming. So he will start barking if any non-Americans start approaching because he likes Americans and they’re fine, but he’s used to the local nationals, Iraqis, throwing rocks at dogs.” And so he was—he warned us a few times when people were coming. And they were just fine people, but it was also just nice to know a heads up. But we liked him. I liked him. It was nice to have a dog around just because if you’re going for so long without animals around it gets weird. I like having them around. It’s just nice to have a little cuddle buddy. I mean we didn’t cuddle with him, but I’d pet him and play with him a few times. I’d put on like gloves and play with him, but so yeah, those were— I’m trying to think if there’s any other things that I missed from my first tour before we—

For more of Rachelle’s story, and to read stories from other vets from the shaft of that spear, the full transcripts of the quoted interviews and many more are available at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum as well as Veterans Museums near you.

Franklin D. Roosevelt on Armistice Day on 11 November 1942 at Arlington National Ceremony:

The American Unknown Soldier who lies here did not give his life on the fields of France merely to defend his American home for the moment that was passing. He gave it that his family, his neighbors, and all his fellow Americans might live in peace in the days to come. His hope was not fulfilled.

American soldiers are giving their lives today in all the continents and on all the seas in order that the dream of the Unknown Soldier may at last come true. All the heroism, all the unconquerable devotion that free men and women are showing in this war shall make certain the survival and the advancement of civilization. That is why on this day of remembrance we do not cease from our work. We are going about our tasks in behalf of our fighting men everywhere. Our thoughts turn in gratitude to those who have saved our Nation in days gone by.

We stand in the presence of the honored dead.

We stand accountable to them, and to the generations yet unborn for whom they gave their lives.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 1 October 2024, Defenders Day in Ukraine:

When we say “defenders of Ukraine,” we feel pride. We feel your protection. We see your courage. Every day and every night. On weekdays and weekends. In heat and cold. Always. Every minute. A minute whose value you understand like no one else. A minute that can change absolutely everything.

These can be painful moments. The loss of a brother-in-arms with whom, just a minute ago, you were talking, sharing food and water in the same trench.

These are also minutes of valor, combat success, and victories.

Minutes of pride, minutes of bravery. Minutes of long battles and brief sleep, minutes of warm communication with loved ones and cold nights on the frontline. All of these – completely different minutes – make up the war. They make up our struggle and an extremely difficult path to one, most important, most desired minute. The first minute of victory. The first minute of peace in Ukraine.

We bow today before everyone who has brought and continues to bring this moment closer. They do so tirelessly. And today, at exactly 9 am, we will stop for a minute. Not out of formality. Not as a routine. But as a sign of sincere respect and gratitude to our warriors. Our cities and villages, streets and squares, our people – wherever we may be, we will all stop for one minute. A minute of silence, when in fact we are all screaming inside. Screaming with pain for every fallen hero. Screaming with hatred for the evil that has come to our land. But it will certainly leave.

Historian Bret Devereaux on “Why Military History?”:

Which brings us to the third reason why we study war and conflict: so that we might have less of it. It should be little surprise that, more than most other areas of history, the study of war is replete with veterans of conflict (if I had to guess very roughly, I’d say about half or so of academic military historians seem to have military experience? perhaps a little bit less?). In speaking, arguing and writing with them I find the common refrain that, as people who experienced war, they do not study it because they like war. Rather military historians study conflict in the same way that doctors study disease; no one assumes that doctors like diseases, quite the opposite. Though I have not experienced combat, I share this view. By understanding the costs of conflict, we can learn to try and avoid it (especially as modern technology drives the cost of conflicts higher and higher than the potential benefits). By understanding the causes of conflict, we can try to ameliorate them. And by understanding conflict itself, we can effort to keep the necessary wars as short and confined as possible, empowering our decision-makers (civilian and military) with the tools they need to find the peace that is always the goal of war.

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And, frankly, I have also taught veteran students who came to a class on military history because they had things they wanted to say or wanted to hear said. What has struck me most consistently is that veteran students tended to appreciate and understand more keenly the value of having a course on military history. The fact is that, while only some of us go to war – because at least in the United States, we have a professional all-volunteer force – all of us are involved in the decisions that choose if we go to war, where and how. Again and again, I have had veteran and active-duty students (and colleagues) express a deep desire to have the general public understand (in the necessarily limited way lifelong-civilians can understand), both their own experience but also to take seriously the broader ramifications that conflict and thus decisions about conflict have.

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In any event, as George Santayana (and not Plato) said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” This is the sad truth that makes military history a necessary, important discipline. It is essential both for understanding our past and our present. Consequently it is not to be neglected merely because it is uncomfortable.