From Here to Tehran

I'm re-reading a book I first read in junior high, From Here to Eternity. I came to the franchise at right angles: first the mini-series starring William Devane as The Warden, Peter Boyle as Fatso, Joe Pantolino as Maggio, and Kim Basinger as the whore with the heart of gold; then the novel; then finally, in my thirties, what everyone remembers best, the movie, with Burt Lancaster as The Warden, McHale's Navy guy as Fatso, Frank Sinatra as Maggio, Mongomery Clift as Prewitt, and Deborah Kerr as the Lieutenant's wife.

What everyone remembers about the movie is the sight of Lancaster and Kerr on the beach (this, reduced from a ten-day vacation they take together in the novel), but what I come away with, what I keep coming back to, is the absolute certainty of the dogfaces as Schofield barracks, in the summer and fall of 1941, that war was coming soon for the Americans, in Europe and the Pacific both. This, despite an enormous pressure from isolationists and the belief (held by millions) that two large oceans to the east and west, and two placid neighbors to the north and south, would be ample security. I am guessing that the soldiers' DNA, as recounted by Jones, was sufficient to propel them to such insight. And I wonder if they possess this insight today.

And I wonder if we're going to fight Iran.

And I think we are.

Charles Krauthammer analyzes the stakes here.