That’s the title of last night’s segment of Ken Burn’s PBS series War.
Roughly translated, FUBAR means “f#%*ked up beyond all repair,” or “…beyond all recognition.”
Several years ago for no reason I can recall at this moment, I did a good deal of research about World War II. Most of the info has faded now, but that one slang term stuck, probably because it aptly summarizes a governing principle of human life—Murphy’s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will.
This enduring principle as it applied to the subject of warfare first surfaced in my life with a book called Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton. A quite lengthy and detailed recounting of events leading up to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, Catton suggested that the North won the Civil War because the Yanks made fewer mistakes than the Rebs did.
His observations seemed on the mark, as he described one missed opportunity after another. A messenger lost his way and a company of Grey’s was wiped out. A Blue messenger lost his way and by some fortuitous circumstance, the mistake resulted in a victory for the North. It seemed as if Murphy’s Law had its reverse doppelganger. If a Yankee messenger lost his way, in retrospect we see that things were better because of it.
I’ve often related Catton’s descriptions to acquaintances and their responses fall clearly into two groups. Those who believed in the principles espoused by the secessionists found a justification for the CSA’s loss, namely the North wasn’t superior. It was just plain old lucky. Those who supported the North responded just as forcefully that the Union’s ability to adapt in the face of emergencies proved Northern supremacy. Each side had its interesting thoughts, all heavily tinged with North-South emotion.
The argument from adaptability surfaced again as an explanation for the U.S. victory over Japan in World War II. As my American friends argued, the Japanese failed to adapt to changing situations. Japanese culture was too rigid for ready adjustment to American innovations in equipment and tactics. And my Japanese friends’ explanation? The American fighting spirit was not superior to the Japanese samurai spirit. The Americans were lucky.
Whichever way you look at it, World War II seems in retrospect to have been replete with FUBAR’s. One wonders how history will view the totality of the Iraq operation.
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