Iran War won't be so absentee

What was America's longest war?

Not the Civil War — that was the bloodiest, 620,000 dead, with Americans falling on both sides. That ended three days shy of exactly four years.

Not World War II — four months shorter. Not the Vietnam War. Good guess, but no. Nearly 20 years, from the first military advisers in November, 1955 to the fall of Saigon in April, 1975.

A long time. But topped, by a couple months, by the Afghanistan War — how quickly we forget. Also nearly 20 years, from 2001 to 2021, 2,400 American military died, not to forget maybe 150,000 Afghan civilians and fighters.

And for what? The country is under the thumb of the Taliban. Just like when we started.

We should think hard about these past conflicts as we go sailing off into a new one. Well, we should have thought about them before we went sailing off into a new one. But thinking hard wasn't on the table, apparently. No consultation with Congress before going to war, as required by law. No communication with the American people — the opposite, we were told the job was done last year. No huddling with our allies — our former allies, fallen away after a year of Donald Trump's global charm offensive.

Trump says the war with Iran will be over "very soon." But Trump says a lot of things — the war is won, no, it continues. Five thousand Marines are on their way. The Straight of Hormuz will be easy to open — no, we must have the help of NATO to do it.

The only thing happening very soon is the war's one-month anniversary — on Saturday, the 28th. A good time to consider where we're heading.

Wars take on a momentum, a weight of their own. After the first six Americans died, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth dragooned their grieving families into an imaginary chorus, urging our country deeper down the hole. Using initial casualties to justify feeding an unknown number of soldiers into a grinder for an undetermined span of time.

“What I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve was the same from family after family," Hegseth said. "They said, ‘Finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done.’”

Finish what? What is this exactly? We seem to be making the goal up as we go.

Not to be outdone, Trump conjured former presidents expressing envy at his triumph. All four living ex-presidents deny saying that.

If the war lasts a year, or 10, we'll want to look back and see what we were thinking when it started. The Republicans were thinking, "Whatever Donny wants, Donny gets." While Democrats gnashed their teeth and wailed, quietly.

Afghanistan went on for 20 years because the war was so removed from our everyday existence. Pain was felt, but not by us.

There's a magnificent line in Thomas Pynchon's massive novel "Gravity's Rainbow" that has been rattling around my brain like a hexagonal nut in a coffee can:

"Yet who can presume to say what the War wants, so vast and aloof it is... so absentee."

The Iran war will not be absentee. Yes, your neighbors aren't going huzzahing down to the enlistment office. But social media will be bringing every explosion to your iPhone, while gas prices surge and the tariff-battered global economy totters. We're feeling this one already.

"Gravity's Rainbow" is about the German V2 missile program in World War II. Late in the war, when the Nazis had already lost, they developed the first ballistic missile, and sent 1,400 hurtling into London, killing 2,500 civilians.

The "V" stood for Vergeltungswaffe, or "vengeance weapon." The idea was to pay back the Allies for bombing German cities (always notice when a story begins. In wars, narrators tend to leave out their own responsibility). The Germans were seeking retaliation for the Allied bombings that began in response to a war the Germans started. The "look what they're doing!" is always very loud. The "in response to what we did," remains unvoiced.

It is the flight of a V2 rocket that sparks "Gravity's Rainbow's" classic opening sentence: "A screaming comes across the sky."

The book is also about parabolas — the curve traced by the flight of a rocket. Fired here, reaching apogee, then bearing down on its target there. A progress that can also be seen as the arc of destiny, "that shape of no surprise, no second chances, no return."

Once you fire a missile, it's gone and you can't claw it back. Nobody knows when the Iran War will end. Or how. The president said the war will end when he "feels it in his bones." Is that reassuring? His bone-deep feelings are what go us here.