Off the
shelf by Lynn McKeown
Soldier, citizen and renegade
James Webb, Born Fighting;
How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, Broadway Books, 2004.
Jim Webb, A Time to Fight;
Reclaiming a Fair and Just America, 2008.
The author of these two books has led an eventful life. After a
youth spent with his career military father and his family moving from one base
to another all over the U.S. and some foreign locations, Webb graduated from
the Naval Academy just in time for some of the fiercest fighting in Vietnam. He
served with distinction but was wounded badly enough to end his career as a
Marine officer. Instead he got a law degree and served as a Congressional counsel, then in the
Pentagon during the Reagan administration, where for a time he was Secretary of
the Navy. He had also begun a career as a writer and journalist, publishing
several novels, including Fields of Fire,
considered one of the best novels about the Vietnam War. Then in 2006 he was
elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Virginia.
These two books are different in that the earlier is mainly
historical and the more recent primarily political, but they are similar in
that the author weaves his own and his familyÕs stories into historical and
public events. And, as might be expected from someone who had made a (second)
career as a writer, they are well written and engrossing.
This is a former soldier, now a politician, who can quote T.S. Eliot and an
Elvis song, Andrew Jackson and Dwight Eisenhower.
The first book, Born
Fighting, is the story of the ethnic group WebbÕs family belonged to,
people who originated in Scotland, emigrated to northern Ireland mostly in the
1600Õs, with descendents emigrating to America mainly in the 1700Õs. Many
settled in the Appalachian regions, then, always restless, into what became the
southern states, spreading into the Ohio Valley and other parts of the
expanding United States. And all along the way, as Webb tells it, they had to
fight – against the Romans in Britain, against the British in Ireland and
colonial America, and against their fellow countrymen in America – he
mentions several ancestors who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.
Often, they had to fight just to survive and make a living for their families;
they became a large part of the blue-collar workers of America. The Scot-Irish
also produced a dozen U.S. Presidents, most notably Andrew Jackson, but also
Bill Clinton, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan (the latter two on their
mothersÕ sides) and a large percentage of AmericaÕs military men, including
most of the Confederate generals but also Ulysses Grant and, in the World War
II era, George Patton.
Webb argues that the Scots-Irish had qualities such as
independence, religious piety, and a sense of honor that characterized them
over the years and that carried over to the larger American culture. You could
say, over-simplifying somewhat, that Born
Fighting is a description and defense of American ÒredneckÓ culture. (Webb
doesnÕt like that term and the Hollywood stereotypes it accompanies but
sometimes uses it for lack of a better word.) He notes that southern religion
and even Òcountry musicÓ developed in the Scot-Irish culture and have great
influence throughout America. Webb argues there are unfair stereotypes about
southern whites, that both poor whites and poor blacks were victims of southern
elites and, in some cases, northern corporate interests. He also describes in both these books
personal experiences of unreasoning hostility toward what he considered
honorable military service when he and others like him returned from Vietnam.
Born Fighting will be of interest to anyone (like me) who has Scots-Irish
ancestry and also to anyone interested in American history and culture, which
Webb argues rather persuasively has been strongly influenced by the
Scots-Irish. A Time to Fight, like
the previous book, has much of WebbÕs own story, but is more a consideration of
the problems and politics of contemporary America. (Time magazine columnist Joe Klein noted the similarity of titles
and suggested, tongue in cheek, that WebbÕs future books could be titled The Fight Goes On and Retired but Still Pugnacious.) WebbÕs
political persuasion has changed over the years. His family background seems to
have been mainly Democratic, and when he took a job with a Republican
Congressman his favorite aunt wouldnÕt let him in her house. As noted
previously, he served in the Pentagon during the Reagan years, where he
established a reputation as something of a Òrenegade.Ó (He apparently resigned
his position as Secretary of the Navy as a protest against some of the
PentagonÕs policies.) Recently Webb ran for the Senate as a Democrat and is now
considered emblematic of a new direction in that party (being considered by
some as a possible Vice Presidential candidate before Joe Biden was picked for
that spot).
A Time to Fight is a view of what Webb says is the most problematic time in
U.S. history since the Depression–World War II era. He tells the story of his own entrance
into politics, ÒDancing with the BearÓ in a friendÕs phrase, which he uses as a
chapter title. He describes his U.S. Senate race against incumbent George Allen
and the way passages from his novels were used against him to try to suggest
unfairly that he was a writer of pornography. As it turned out, Allen made a
gaffe in the campaign, with his ÒmacacaÓ racial slur, and Webb won the contest
by a narrow margin, giving the Democrats a majority in the Senate.
Webb finds fault with much in both parties. Many in the
Democratic Party, in his view, have become captives of Òinterest politicsÓ and
have alienated voters with what appears to be an elitist attitude, while the
Republicans are blind to the severe economic bind that Americans find
themselves in. A chapter entitled ÒFrom a Square Deal to a Raw DealÓ cites
statistics about the immense, growing disparity between the pay of CEOs and the
pay of their employees and the equally immense disparity between the wealthy and most other Americans.
And he notes Teddy RooseveltÕs use of the phrase ÒSquare DealÓ and the
importance of community of interest at all levels of society. Webb quotes T.R.
at length about the importance to Òour healthy national life that we should
recognize this community of interest among our people.Ó Webb rejects the
Republican charge that pointing out income disparities is fomenting Òclass
warfare.Ó It is Republicans who are promoting class warfare, he says, through
their failure to establish a fair economic playing field.
Webb blames both parties, but especially the George W. Bush
administration, with its neo-conservative advisors, for what he sees as a
disastrous foreign policy. There has been a lack of coherent strategy, in his
view, in the U.S. policy toward the rest of the world. The Iraq invasion, in
WebbÕs view, was a colossal blunder because it completely failed to grasp the
complexities of the Middle East with its competing factions. In a chapter
entitled ÒHow Not to Fight a War,Ó Webb details how the attack on Saddam
HusseinÕs regime was unnecessary and failed to deal with the real problem of
Islamic terrorism. But both parties, he says, have a wrong approach to veterans
and the military: the Democrats once vilified them (during the Vietnam era) and
now see them as objects of pity; the Republicans exploit them for political
advantage. Webb has a great deal to say about how the U.S. military is, in his
view, mismanaged, including the move away from citizen-soldiers and toward
ÒcontractorsÓ who are not accountable for their actions. Also the way
high-ranking officers are too cozy with civilian agencies, not making waves
that would jeopardize their post-retirement careers. But Webb also notes some
high-ranking military who criticize unwise defense policies, often to their own
detriment.
Another very powerful chapter in the book, ÒA Criminal
Injustice,Ó deals with another of WebbÕs primary concerns, the U.S. justice
system. In this chapter, he details how the prison system in the U.S. has grown
exponentially, with a higher percentage of citizens incarcerated than in any
other country, with a disproportionate percentage of those prisoners being
black men. This has resulted, in WebbÕs view, from an unthinking policy of
Ògetting toughÓ on crime that gets politicians elected but creates more
problems than it solves, especially with the lack of agencies and programs to
reintegrate criminals into society. Another cause of the huge prison
population, he feels, is an unrealistic drug policy, and he advocates more
treatment programs and lesser penalties, especially for marijuana use.
WebbÕs books are interesting in themselves – he is a very
good writer – and perhaps
also of interest for what he represents as someone who previously leaned toward
the Republicans but has Òreturned to his rootsÓ in the Democratic Party. We
hear speculation about some of the former Republican ÒbaseÓ having second
thoughts about their support for
that party. Do candidates and thinkers such as Webb represent a tide in
a new direction? More importantly, WebbÕs is a new and passionate voice calling
for attention to some serious problems in modern America. Near the end of A Time to Fight, the author recounts
some of his Vietnam experiences, including a tragic story of a Vietnamese boy
whom he watched die after the child was accidentally injured by WebbÕs unit.
Why such experiences were included in the book is not immediately apparent,
though perhaps they serve to underscore the moral complexities faced in the
modern world. Perhaps the book could have been titled A Time to Think. It is a book worth reading for anyone who wants to
think seriously about AmericaÕs current problems.