"Snoopy's Christmas" & our longing for peace

We live in a time when war can't be suspended just because someone wants a "truce." The gentlemen's rules of war have faded. Today the enemy wears no uniform. It can slither among us undetected.

We have waged a "war on terror" but it's hardly a conventional war. We can never be sure the enemy is vanquished. The vigilance looks as though it will be endless. Perhaps it's a proposition where victory can never be declared.

The vigilance brings with it a price like the exasperation we feel when we hear of the excesses of the TSA.

We rattle sabers with Iran and groan. We remember the excruciating process of intervening in Iraq and wonder if it was worth it, if maybe the solution in that country could have come by other means.

Mass intervention of a military force? Force to compel submission of a country?

We intervene in places where Christmas doesn't mean anything. The major wars of the 20th Century followed a different model. That's why in World War I there was a Christmas truce. We are reminded of this in a Christmas song that was well known to the boomers (my crowd) when young.

It's interesting that a song so apparently silly, based as it was on a comic strip, should give us the reminder of something so somber as the World War I truce. World War I was nothing but horrific.

Had a Middle Eastern country used the kind of weapons we saw unleashed in World War I, we would retaliate with scorched earth. But the 20th Century was marked by total fury over who would control Europe. It's amazing that WWI didn't settle the issue.

Intense as the conflict was, the combatants remembered Christmas. This historical episode is illuminated in "Snoopy's Christmas."
Perhaps this song still gets played on oldies radio stations. I don't think the young generation is too familiar. It certainly comes across as a novelty song.

But there's a wholly serious, thought-provoking dimension.
The song's basis is the "Snoopy" character of the Peanuts comic strip. We all know that's the dog, who never actually "says" anything but has thoughts right on par with the most philosophical of us.

He enjoyed pretending he was a WWI flying ace. His foe: the "Red Baron" (of the German side).

The song came out in 1967 when I was in the junior high. Had I been of draft age, I might have been sent to Viet Nam. Viet Nam like the Middle East is a region that's not going to show pacifism for Christmas. I think we can say 1967 was the height of horror in the Viet Nam war for Americans.

And it was in that year that The Royal Guardsmen came out with "Snoopy's Christmas." This was actually a clever "parlay" by the Guardsmen. Already they had the hit "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron." They carried the original over for a Christmas version.

I remember a few years ago, Kim Ode wrote a column for the Star Tribune remembering this song most fondly. It might be one of the most nostalgic things you can point out to a boomer. We could feel truly warm about it if we could wipe away memories of Viet Nam.

Usually nostalgia means it would be fun to go back to a particular time. We watched "The Wonder Years" TV show with a certain fascination as we remembered things like the first moon landing. It could have been a rich time. Instead the specter of war and military conscription brought rage and detachment by my crowd.

It would have been nice to have a "truce." It would have been nice for Lyndon Johnson to say "we're getting out."

It's interesting that the WWI truce was initiated by the Germans. The song by the Guardsmen reflects that historical fact: It is the Red Baron who extends friendship first.

The Germans gave beer to the British.

The song begins with a male chorus singing the German yuletide classic "O Tannenbaum." The heart of the song is classic '60s pop in its tone. Chimes ring to enhance the Christmas feeling.

For some reason the song became especially popular in New Zealand and remains so today.

The memory of the Red Baron is kept alive by frozen pizza.

The artist behind the Peanuts strip, Charles Schulz, has left us. He was a WWII veteran. It took two great wars to settle the issues of Europe. And even in the wake of that settlement, there was great conflict in the form of the Cold War that colored my generation to a great extent.

When I was a kid, it seemed some of these things were fixed (i.e. imprinted) permanently. I mean, things like the war in Indochina, inflation (or "stagflation") and the boogeyman of Communism.

God created man in such a way that we cannot be without some grand conflict. So today we have "terrorism" and the vigilance of the TSA, reflecting the scared stance we took in the Cold War. If it isn't one thing, it's something else.

A cynic would say we need to fear something in order to acquiesce to the continuing military industrial complex. President Eisenhower warned us about that. Eisenhower hated war because he had seen so much of it. He was the last person who would want to see militarism fed like some insatiable beast.

Today there are Republicans who would argue we can't cut a penny from "defense" spending. I put the word in quotes because I'm influenced by Ron Paul. Paul suggests a word that would be more accurate and promote more reservations, like maybe "militarism."

We're not fighting the Wermacht anymore.

Republicans and other reactionaries like to beat their chest. It's a test of machismo.

We have to start taking care of our own now. We must listen more to the grievances from the "Occupy" movement. We of all people, us boomers, should understand where such a voice springs from.

All the youth want is fairness. They feel they are entering a world where the deck is stacked against them. The hurdles are more foreboding than when the boomers entered the workforce. Too many of us seem oblivious to that.

We assume AARP will go to bat for us and keep us comfortable. The young people feel exasperated. We listen to politicians like Newt Gingrich who says the "Occupy" members need to "take a bath and get a job."

Isn't this rhetoric exactly the same as the "America, love it or leave it" refrains we heard when we were young?

Our current wars have been bad for our economy. It's questionable what we have gained. We face an enemy who would never slow down for Christmas. Such "truces" are now the stuff of nostalgia.

War is bad. Terrorism is bad. God created us with such proclivities. Bot God also instilled a pervading common sense and compassion that make us recoil from war, as reflected in "Snoopy's Christmas," a song with a joyous tone that truly reminds us of our better side.

Snoopy takes to the air to fight the Red Baron - he's actually just on the top of his dog house - and it's Christmas Eve. The Red Baron extends actual friendship. The combatants share a holiday toast at the end and then fly their separate ways.

The sound of the chimes makes this song distinct from the first "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" song.

"Snoopy's Christmas" puts an instant smile on our faces. If only the Viet Nam conflict could have abated in a way reflecting a similar sensibility.

"The good guys" won the world wars of the 20th Century. We assume the presumed forces for good, will prevail at present. We wonder if Iraq would have been drawn into the Arab Spring and undergone a transformation, sans any mass U.S. military intervention.

Us boomers should be natural pacifists. We ought to be in the spirit of those who offered beer in the WWI truce.

It's the first week of December when we're all falling into the Christmas spirit or at least trying. But we live in a time when "money is speech" and "corporations are people."

Mitt Romney says "corporations are people too." If they are, let them all get a lump of coal for Christmas.

Snoopy was a prime character in an ensemble that gave us "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Whatever travails swirl around us this holiday season, let's all just slow down, forget the profit goal for the next quarter and feel love and compassion.

I suppose we need to show the spirit of a truce. Let's feel the spirit of "Snoopy's Christmas."

- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com