Free What it is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes

support of going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I supported going after Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, but most terrorists aren’t devils—they’re just horribly ignorant people who got riled up casting our side as devils. Turning warfare into crusades only invites clouded judgment and fierce self-righteous opposition that may otherwise have crumbled. It also evokes crusades on the other side and vengeful retaliation. People can eventually judge rationally whether or not they’re on the wrong side of a political fight about human rights and values and it would just be better to quit fighting; people generally cannot judge rationally when it’s a religious fight.
    Krishna tells Arjuna that there are two paths to realization, the path of knowledge by meditation and the path of work for men of action. These same two paths are identical to thoseportrayed in our Western mythology, for example the story of the knight Parzival, which is part of the Grail legend. There the fisher king’s brother represents the path of knowledge. He is a monk and religious contemplative whom Parzival meets just before reentering the Grail castle. Parzival himself shows us the path of action, the same path put forward by Krishna to Arjuna.
    Krishna says to Arjuna: “Remember, no man can be still, even for a moment. He has to do work. It is a law of nature that man should work... By not working you cannot live. Even the bodily functions need work to sustain them.
    “How then can one escape the bondage of work? By performing a sacrifice for the general good. That is the secret of work well done. Work should be done so that others may benefit by it and not you. Dedicate all the work to me, and fight.”
    When you dedicate the work to Krishna it means that you get your ego out of the way, that you do it for some reason other than personal gain or pleasure. It also means acting in the name of a universal spiritual, ethical, or political principle. Dedicating the work is precisely what I and many others did not do in Vietnam.
    Those few who do dedicate their actions in this way, no matter which side they fight on, will very likely fare better in the guilt department than those who do not. For example, it is likely that the young Canadian, British, American, and other NATO or coalition troops who fought in Afghanistan or Iraq will have less guilt the more they believe they were fighting to stop a clear terrorist threat or overthrow a brutal dictatorship or religious reign of terror. They will suffer less than those of us who fought in Vietnam for a less clearly defined cause. Sadly, as the two present wars drag on, the original clearly definedmissions and reasons for being there have become less clear. The less clear the justifiable motives, the more difficulty returning veterans will have with guilt.
    Unfortunately, when you dedicate your actions to Krishna you can be wrong. Terrorists, for example, who have dedicated their actions to Allah will have no guilt about these actions, no matter how horrific. Until they realize they were lured into a misunderstanding of the most basic tenants of Islam, there will be even less of a moral brake on unnecessary violence. The same goes for crusading Christians. So Krishna’s answer, “Dedicate all the work to me, and fight,” helps warriors deal with guilt and doubt only if they never come to believe they made a mistake about what they were fighting for. Because of this, it behooves the warriors to pay close attention before they start.
    Even though it is unrealistic to believe one will be able to stay continually engaged in combat at the detached level of Arjuna, an idealized character, and even though Krishna’s advice has snares, such as being caught up in an ideal that one later regrets, it is the best way I know to minimize the guilt about killing in combat. Try to achieve this ideal when entering into the fray in the first place. One can only hope the chosen transpersonal reasons are good ones;