Recently, I had the opportunity to re-read one of my favorite books--Anton Myrer's Once an Eagle. For those not familar with the book, it "is the story of one special man, a soldier named Sam Damon, and his adversary over a lifetime, fellow officer Courtney Massengale. Damon is a professional who puts duty, honor, and the men he commands above self interest. Massengale, however, brilliantly advances by making the right connections behind the lines and in Washington's corridors of power....A study in character and values, courage, nobility, honesty, and selflessness, here is an unforgettable story about a man who embodies the best of our nation--and in us all." (from the bookcover)
You need not be associated with the military to appreciate either the story or the underlying themes. In that vein, I've included some of my favorite quotations from Myrer's incredible work:
"Because once the eminent heads of state in all their infinite wisdom decide that it [war] must be done, once the drums begin to beat--there is nothing ahead but fear and waste and misery and desolation. Nothing else. Once the engine has started it must shudder and rumble to the very end of its hellish course, come what may. And you and I and a few million others are the ones who must cling to the machine as it grinds along. (pg 299)
"Sam, do you honestly believe people are going to stop being greedy and resentful and full of pride and prejudice? Do you think they will quit hating and fearing--do you think the lordly heads of government are going to abandon their methods of seizing and holding power, of gaining advantages over their neighbors? Why should they change? What should cause them to abhor the only rules to the game they know? And even if they were to do so, do you believe for one minute their own citizens would let them get away with it?" (pg 335)
"It seems to be our [American] history: we are indifferent, unprepared--then all of a sudden we're shocked, roaring with righteous wrath, ready to rush off into battle with our pants down..." (pg 337)
"War: war was not an oriflamme-adventure filled with noble deeds and tilts with destiny, as he had believed, but a vast, uncaring universe of butchery and attrition, in which the imaginative, the sensitive were crippled and corrupted, the vulgar and tough-fibered were augmented--and the lucky were lucky and survived, and they alone." (pg 344)
"The businessman goes for his profits and most of the time he doesn't see where it's leading; and things go from bad to worse, you remember how it was, and he pulls the country along with him, the politicians and the churches and the newspapers and everyone else, and finally somebody says the word, the terrible word there's no going back from--and the businessmen go right on piling up their profits, and the politicians rant on and on about that last full measure of devotion...but it's the little guy--the clerk and the farm boy and the carpenter--who's left hanging on the wire with his guts all over his knees." (pg 439)
"I've been detailed for this, honey. That's what it is. Like a soldier who's drawn outpost duty beyond the front lines. He's just drawn the detail, that's all. He didn't ask for it, it was laid on him--maybe because his platoon leader thought he was more alert or competent or careful than the others, or maybe the sergeant had it in for him and stuck him with it, or maybe it was just the luck of the draw. But that doesn't matter--there he is: he's drawn the obligation, he's out there, and what he does during those hours will mean the lives of all the rest. And so he's got to do everything in his power to prepare himself for that moment." (pg 513)
"That's what they know--that some must lead and others must follow, but that leadership is an obligation and not a mark of caste." (pg 644)
"There they lay, far from the fields of home, two crossed sticks and a dogtag, killed in a moment of heroism or cowardice or ignorance or ignominy, but all of them killed in the fragile splendor of their young manhood; and to some heart ten thousand miles away their present moldering was a source of immeasurable grief. And to others--even to many standing here in the still, heavy air--it was nothing at all." (pg 819)
"There, in that outpost, on that three-square-feet of ground, was where the real war was being fought, no matter who denied it; and how that private did tonight--whether he had the hardihood and the craft to resist exhaustion and debility and slumber and kill the weary, sick, resourceful enemy who sought his life--would decide who would win this war, and nothing else." (pg 931)
"If you could bottle it [the smell of the battlefield], Beaupre thought savagely, swallowing, fighting the hot clutch of nausea with all his might, trying not to breathe, trying to look without seeing. This smell. If you could bottle it, store it in some tanks just outside Washington or New York City or Chicago; and then when the drums began to beat, when the eminent statesmen rose in all their righteous choler and the news rags and radio networks started their impassioned chant, if you could release a few dozen carboys on the senate floor, the executive offices of DuPont de Nemours, Boeing and Ford and Firestone, the trading posts on Wall Street; and seal off the exits. Repeat every three hours as needed. Rx. By God, that would take some of the fun out of it" (pg 1074)
"A man was only one man, one meager entity, but he was so many divergent things to other men." (pg 1161)
"No. I don't know. That's not the problem. It's us. Here. It's got to come to a head. Between those who want us to be a democracy--a real one, not a show-window one--and those who want us to be a Great Power. In caps and with all the trimmings." (pg 1172)
"But that's how it goes. People are going to go on being scared and vindictive and greedy and forgetful and everything else they happen to be. And all you can do is keep on going yourself, do what you can, and hope for the best." (pg 1173)
"But I can respect the patriotism of men from other lands--who are every bit as loyal and self-sacrificing and earnest as we are ourselves. They do not happen to believe what we believe; but have we given them irrefutable proof that our way is the only way for all the rest of the world? --a world that is not as much in awe of us as we'd like to think." (pg 1244)
"...the only thing I've learned in sixty-five years, only one: the romantic, spendthrift moral act is ultimately the practical one--the practical, expedient, cozy-dog move is the one that comes to grief. Yes. Remember that. Joey, if it comes to a choice between being a good soldier and a good human being--try to be a good human being..." (pg 1288)
Read the book. It is more than worth the time and effort.
