One of my nephews recently asked for a copy of a commentary I had submitted on 
July 5, 1997.   Upon finding it in my records and reviewing it, I found that this
being the era of the professional military, along with "road maps" for pre-empted wars,
that it was more applicable for our present-day than on the day I submitted 
it 7-1/2 years ago.

    I hereby resubmit this commentary with the hope that we can open-mindedly review 
the direction in which our nation is going.   Considering that it was before "road maps"
and Iraq, I would further advise the older and more wordly among us to consider how my 
late father-in-law may have interpreted our United States foreign policy of today--keeping
in mind, of course, that if more troops are needed for the "road map," that the old system
of reinitiating the draft for citizen soldiers may be required to rebuild our depleting
voluntary military.  

    COMMENTARY   7/05/97   

    Minas Bouloutian, my late and beloved father-in-law and a survivor of the Armenian
Genocide of 1915, used to say, "Ole man make the war, young jeckess make the fight." 
He operated a small tailor shop near the Penn University campus, directly across from
the fraternity houses.  The students called him, Joe the Tailor, and his tailor shop was
a landmark for both students and professors alike.  They used to stop by and ask questions
on everything under the sun and Joe the Tailor always responded in broken English which
was a major part of his homespun, humorous manner.

    Joe the Tailor has long since passed away and his tailor shop has long since been
replaced with a modern, updated facility to accommodate the growing needs of the
ever-expanding campus.  However, as the years wear on, I find Joe the Tailor's humorous
and broken English opinions taking on more meaning.

    Out of the year-and-a-half that I spent in Europe during WW II, I spent nearly half
of it in combat.  And out of the half I spent in combat, I spent two-thirds of it in 
an infantry line company.

    Near the end of the war, when Germany's young regulars were depleted, they started
replacing them with Volkssturm (home guard) soldiers.  These were men who were classified
non-combatant because of much-needed skills, partially infirmed, or too old for line duty. 
As time wore on and as the severity of their manpower shortage increased, they started 
putting young boys of early puberty age on the line.  And because of their innocent dedicated
motivations, they also used them on suicide missions.

The prevalent fear in a young combat soldier is the fear of showing cowardice, the fear of
dying, and last but not least, the fear of becoming permanently maimed.  As in the case of
all young boys, such as as the ones that the Germans used during the closing days of the war,
the fear of cowardice outweighed all the rest.  This is why the militarists of the world 
always say, "The younger, the better."  For the more calloused among them, the combatant is
more of an ordinance than a human being.  

    On one occasion, I saw an example of this.  It was a few weeks before the end of the war
and we had not as yet crossed over into Czechoslovakia.  We had just gotten word that there
was a German half-track headed our way and shooting everything in sight.  Shortly 
thereafter, the renegade half-track came into sight and all hell broke loose.  After 
the vehicle was knocked out and the dust had settled, we were able to look at the foolhardy 
Germans who had given their lives.  They turned out to be three young boys who, no doubt, 
were in fear of dying but in greater fear of being labeled, "cowards."  The oldest couldn't 
have been more than fourteen.

    Many years after that horrible incident, while watching German WW II films on TV, I 
was reminded of it when I saw a demented and deflated Hitler, affectionately tweaking 
the ear of a young boy soldier standing in review.  The boy couldn't have been more than 
eleven and the brim of his regulation German helmet was almost touching his young, 
undeveloped shoulders.

    Who's right and who's wrong?  I suppose that the answer depends on who wins and 
who loses -- or does it?   When the war ended, the USSR and China, our wartime allies, 
became our enemies, while Germany and Japan, our wartime enemies, became our allies.

    War being one of man's greatest obscenities, all I can say is that the next time we 
hear an older person hollering, "Let's win one for the Fatherland," or "Let's win one 
for the Motherland," let us not forget what Joe the Tailor once said.
                           
     Joseph Vosbikian