The Cost of Forgetting How to Fight

After twenty years of war, many Americans are eager to move on. Headlines celebrate withdrawals and declare conflict “over.” However, peace is not the absence of threats. It is the moment when vigilance matters most. History warns us that nations that forget how to fight pay dearly, whether in the streets of Rome, the capitals of interwar Europe, or the quiet moments of modern America’s own defense.

The War on Terror marked the longest war in American history. Some soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen who served in this conflict were not even born when it began. During the two decades this war spanned, there were great technological strides with the capturing and dissemination of information. Civilians in Los Angeles and New York were able to view uncut footage of carnage in Helmand Province and the Korengal Valley while drinking their morning coffee. Naturally, people grew fatigued. 

As time went on, the popular post 9/11 patriotism era was overshadowed by our current era where social justice is all the rage. I remember a distinct time in my youth where my peers stopped packing Girl Scout cookies for the troops and instead started signing petitions for world peace. War was no longer a political means to an end as Clausewitz would argue, but an instance of America acting as the oppressor. As the war on terror drew down, veterans were viewed as physical reminders of a choice that America’s civic memory views as regrettable. The widely televised withdrawal from Afghanistan only exacerbated this. 

Rome began as a city of citizen-soldiers. Military service was intertwined with civic duty: defending the republic was the highest calling, and warriors were honored as the backbone of the state. As Rome expanded, reliance on mercenaries and foreign troops grew, and the cultural reverence for citizen warriors faded. Discipline, courage, and loyalty, once the pillars of Roman power, were outsourced to those who had no stake in the Roman Republic itself. 

The consequences were inevitable. When barbarian invasions came, the empire’s defenders were often mercenaries whose commitment ended at payday. The loss of civic military virtue left Rome vulnerable, and the republic it once protected crumbled. History makes the lesson clear: a society that discards its warriors, even in peacetime, invites chaos.

After the First World War, Europe was traumatized. Ruddy-cheeked schoolboys returned as shells of men. The physical disfigurements from chemical warfare were so severe that they served as inspiration for monster movies of that time including Frankenstein. Young men came back with a condition never seen before that doctors dubbed shell shock. The continent swore it would never again endure such slaughter. This moral revulsion translated into political action: nations demilitarized, armies were downsized, and military preparedness became a liability rather than a responsibility.

Threats did not vanish. Germany quietly rearmed while Britain, France, and other European powers clung to pacifism. Political leaders, fearing public backlash, repeatedly chose appeasement over readiness. The result was catastrophic: when the Second World War erupted, Europe was ill-prepared, and the costs of forgetting how to fight were measured in millions of lives lost.

The lesson is clear: moral discomfort and the desire for peace do not remove danger. They only postpone the reckoning. Societies that fail to honor and maintain their warriors pay dearly for that neglect.

History is not kind to nations that forget their warriors. In Rome, the citizen-soldier vanished; in interwar Europe, pacifism replaced preparedness; and today, America risks a similar complacency. Veterans carry knowledge, discipline, and moral clarity that cannot be taught in schools or boardrooms. They remember the stakes, the consequences, and the cost of failure. As we face new threats from narcoterrorism to foreign countries trying to divide the nation, this knowledge, discipline, and moral clarity is more pertinent than ever. 

Warriors are not advocates for endless conflict, they are custodians of readiness. They preserve the skills and judgment that keep societies safe when danger is quiet but still present. Their presence in law enforcement, emergency response, civic leadership, and even ordinary communities ensures that the lessons of past struggles are not lost to comfort or convenience.

To ignore or marginalize these individuals is not only a disservice to them–it is a disservice to the nation itself. A republic that forgets its warriors forgets how to survive. how to defend, and ultimately, how to endure.

Peace is a fragile gift, maintained not by inaction but by those willing to stand watch. Societies that treat warriors as relics or inconveniences pay the cost in disorder, vulnerability, and lost lives. America has the chance to do better. To honor service, to preserve experience, and to recognize that the end of combat does not end the nation’s need for courage, discipline, and vigilance.

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