Sacrifice of the Few

I was quite moved by Bob Herbert’s piece in the NY Times today about how little the average American is sacrificing—compared to your average soldier or soldier’s family—in the Iraq War.

It’s true. I can completely ignore the pain and suffering of U.S. military and their families—not to mention that of the reported 600,000 Iraqi civilians who have died since the U.S. invasion begain.

So, I began to wonder what would count as a commensurate (or at least appropriate) sacrifice on my part. Obviously, I’m not willing to give up my life or the life of my loved ones but what should I—or the average complacent American—do?

Here’s what I propose: (and it’s based on the assumption—perhaps flawed—that the underlying reason for this war is oil). Suppose I said that until the war is over (that is, until all U.S. combat forces are brought home) that I would refuse to drive a car.

That’s probably what I should do, but perhaps there will be occasions when I need to get Mimi somewhere, to which the tandem is impractical, so suppose it’s this: I will refuse to drive in a car by myself until the war is over.

Now, perhaps that’s not really a sacrifice for me. (Perhaps a greater sacrifice would be to HAVE to drive places, that is, if sacrifice is doing what you don’t want to but should.)

But suppose if all Americans adopted this policy, at least as an aspiration. Suppose every time we wanted to go somewhere, we tried our best to go by bus, or carpool, or train, or bike. Or even cab.

That would indeed be a sacrifice. It certainly wouldn’t be as great a sacrifice as Sargeant Krause, and certainly not as great as Lieutenant Zelinski, but it would likely qualify as a lot more than most of us are doing.

Would it help to save lives if we all helped to save oil?