The Home Front: Land That They Love

By NANCY GIBBS

Of all ennobling sentiments, patriotism may be the most easily manipulated. On the one hand, it gives powerful expression to what is best in a nation's character: a commitment to principle, a willingness to sacrifice, a devotion to the community by the choice of the individual. But among its toxic fruits are intolerance, belligerence and blind obedience, perhaps because it blooms most luxuriantly during times of war. Tyrants know this. It was Hitler's henchman Hermann Goring who noted that "all you have to do is tell people they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

All the more remarkable, and encouraging, that in America's domestic debate over the war in the gulf, patriotism has not taken sides. Supporters of the use of force have no monopoly on national pride, any more than protesters have sole claim to the desire for peace. Antiwar demonstrators are waving flags, not burning them, praising and praying for the troops even as they condemn the policies that sent them to the front. SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, read signs at a huge Washington peace rally two weeks ago; BRING THEM HOME NOW. Their opponents, meanwhile, carry banners saying WE WANT PEACE, BUT NOT WITH SADDAM. Between the extremes of NO BLOOD FOR OIL and NUKE IRAQ, the middle ground is filled with mature ambivalence.

This attitude explains why the overriding theme on the home front is concern for the soldiers and compassion for their families. For three weeks now, Americans have sought, with anthems and flags and bells, with care packages and valentines and yellow ribbons, to find ways of expressing solidarity with those most at risk and for their loved ones. There is a measure of atonement in this by a country that treated Vietnam veterans with unjustified contempt. "When these guys come back, we're going to make sure they come back to a hero's welcome," says Doug Swardstrom, a prowar investment counselor in Los Angeles. "We're going to organize the biggest parade they've ever seen."

In the meantime, there is a parade of gestures. A tattoo parlor in Houston reports a 40% jump in business, mostly for military designs. A waitress in Rocky Hill, Conn., told her boss he could fire her if he liked, but she would not remove her red, white and blue ribbon. In Pine Bluff, Ark., Deborah Hurt has sent personal letters to nearly 400 fellow Arkansans serving in the gulf. "I had seven brothers; six were in the military, and four served in Vietnam," she says. "I saw what they came home to. I made a promise when I was 16 years old not to let that happen again."

Not all the gestures are symbolic. Military recruiters report a surge of inquiries in the first days of the war. Many callers wanted to be sent to the gulf -- particularly, recruiters noted wryly, those who turned out to be overage or underqualified. At some stations, like the Air Force recruiting office in Quincy, Mass., the number of enlistments almost doubled. "I haven't seen anything like this since I began recruiting," says Technical Sergeant Rick Shellene. "A lot of kids feel it is about time to start standing behind the country."

Every war trails memories of the last one, and so these days are filled with recollections of Vietnam. In 1970 construction workers in New York City dropped hot rivets on passing demonstrators. The alienation was complete as protesters lionized Ho Chi Minh and vilified the American Establishment. If generals routinely fight the last war, activists protest against it, and old radicals are still to be found. But this time, they are the exception. "The movement has learned from its mistakes," says the Rev. Emory Searcy Jr. of Atlanta, director of National Clergy and Laity Concerned, an umbrella church $ movement of 15,000.

The greatest lesson is that protest and patriotism may be thoroughly intertwined. A forest of flags rustles above the crowds at both pro- and antiwar rallies across the country. Devotion to America, peace activists argue, is what inspires them to march, to protest the loss of young lives and the distraction of war that deflects energy and money and attention from battles being waged closer to home. What is victory worth, they wonder, if returning soldiers cannot find a house or a job or health care once the battle ends? "We're saying support the soldiers, bring them home alive," says Searcy. "There's nothing unpatriotic about that. There isn't the gap between the troops and families and the protesters that there was with Vietnam."

Both the pro- and antiwar camps include some unlikely converts. Among those marching against the President's policy are veterans and families of soldiers in the gulf. Recent rallies have absorbed all manner of fringe groups (Lesbian Zionists for Peace, for example), but they have also tapped into mainstream movements that cut across lines of race, class, age and gender.

On the other side, the breadth of support for Bush reflects in part the depth of horror at Saddam Hussein. "Saddam is the perfect villain, and he keeps on proving it," says Anne Lewis, a devoutly liberal Democrat who is the unlikely founder of the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, formed to rally Americans around the President's policy. "Having been quick to criticize Administration policy in the past, I wanted to weigh in when I thought what they were doing was right." Some historians, however, warn of a honeymoon period. "If the war goes badly," notes University of Rochester political scientist John Mueller, "or the costs are too high, support will drop."

One reason for moderation on both sides of the debate is that the issues are so complicated, the information so limited. There is a willingness to reserve judgment and reject jingoism. "People are confused about this war," says Ray Neufeld, president of a Chicago greeting-card firm that plans to ship 250,000 valentines to the gulf. "They're watching real danger and potential death in their living rooms. Should they go on with their ordinary lives? Putting a ribbon on a mailbox or sending a card is something they can do."

While there is solace in the symbols, there is also room for a larger political message. Just as peace activists hope the movement will inspire a new era of social protest, their opponents are looking for a return to traditional values. "There's something about saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing patriotic songs that makes us reflect on how far we've drifted from those values America was founded on," observes Marilyn Loeffel, president of FLARE, a conservative, interdenominational group based in Memphis. She condemns the protesters as hypocritical and unpatriotic: "These people who are all for peace are ready to fistfight."

As ever in a time of inflamed rhetoric, there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around. "It is often easier to fight for principles," Adlai Stevenson once noted, "than to live up to them." Any claim to patriotism is made grotesque when it is expressed by torching Arab-owned stores. Or when it cheers war so long as someone else fights it, or protests violently against violence, or drives 900 miles at fuel-wasting speed to march beneath a banner that reads NO BLOOD FOR OIL. "War is the gravest moral question a nation can face," says Eduardo Cohen, 41, a former Vietnam infantryman who is now an antiwar activist in San Francisco. "This isn't a time to end discussion."

Fortunately, those who are watching from the sidelines sense a new respect for the right to disagree. It is this position, perhaps, which has prompted even the President to refer benignly to the protesters and not impugn their motives. For it is apparent to anyone who watches and listens carefully that the present debate, in all its complexity, is worth protecting. Prowar and antiwar activists must recognize what they have in common if their patriotism is to have any more meaning than a bouquet of balloons drifting above the blare of marching bands.

With reporting by Blake Hallanan/San Francisco, James Willwerth/Los Angeles and Richard Woodbury/Houston