On Buffery

I have reached the age where, according to sages on the Internet, I either have to develop an interest in cooking meats or find a war to become fascinated with. My landlord doesn't want me to have a grill too close to the house, so it looks like I’ll have to pick a war. What are my options?

The Blue Chips. By far the two most popular wars for history buffs to get interested in are the Civil War and World War II. The Civil War has the advantage of taking place within the United States, so you can see the battlefields without a passport; World War II has the advantage, now sadly diminishing, of taking place within living memory. Both have the advantage of being clear victories for the right side. While the Confederates were not evil on the level of the Nazis or Imperial Japan, I believe there’s a consensus that the United States is better off without slavery and with sweet potato pie.

If we’ve learned anything from recent presidential politics, it’s that two options aren't enough, so what are the other ones?

The Alternatives. Among major wars throughout history, the ones with the least amount of history buffery relative to their importance (from an American perspective) are World War I and the American Revolution. The former has its moments (e.g., Belleau Wood and Lawrence of Arabia) and is the first instance of America saving the day for its allies, but the bulk of it — trench warfare punctuated by gas attacks — is too depressing to be fertile ground for buffery. The Revolution, on the other hand, seems quite promising. On a personal level, it has at least two advantages for me. One is that unlike the Civil War, which took place mostly in the South, Revolutionary battlefields are evenly distributed along the East Coast. I sweat a lot, so the prospect of traipsing around battlefields in New England or New Jersey in the summer is more appealing than, say, Tennessee or Mississippi. Also, I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to those who secured our independence for my name not being “Geoffrey”.

Napoleon. Napoleon is the master of Europe. Only the British Navy stands in his way. Oceans, much like my bandwidth for developing a mildly unhealthy fascination with military history, are now battlefields. The problem with Napoleonic war buffery is that it tends to focus on the British Navy (at least for those of us who don’t have the time to read War and Peace), which was impressing Americans into its ranks at the time, which led to an actual shooting war with us. It got so bad that New Englanders evolved a defense mechanism to prevent being shanghaied into the British Navy: becoming insufferable about Boston sports. There is, in other words, a direct line between Britain’s actions in the Napoleonic era to Bill Belichick, which might be unforgivable. Napoleon, for his part, sold us the Louisiana Purchase, which turned out to be a net benefit despite that part of the country having the Iowa caucuses, most of the nation’s tornadoes, and whatever “ambrosia salad” is.

The Startups. Perhaps the smart move is to get ahead of the curve by becoming a buff of a more recent war. Mastering the complexity of the Global War on Terrorism has a certain appeal, although I’m not sure I’d ever want to be the sort of person who understands this:

The Korean War runs the risk of being reactivated, although such would be a profound tactical blunder by Kim Jong Un. As the only fat person in the entire country, I imagine he’d be easy to spot and capture. There are numerous obscure conflicts around the world, but it’s difficult to predict which side of it some of the U.S. will end up on, and I don’t want to pick the wrong side and end up on an FBI watch list. The best choice here might be the first Persian Gulf war, which I could (perhaps with some liquid assistance) learn to spout off about for longer than the actual war. I don’t have kids yet, but I want to, and that sounds like a dad achievement.

The Ethnic Play. For descendants of historically repressed or occupied groups, such as the Irish, or the Poles, or the Irish, or the Greeks, or the Irish, or the Jews, or the Irish, or the Africans, or the Irish, or the Koreans, or the Irish, or the Armenians, or the Irish, studying happier times or your people’s struggle for independence and sovereignty can be inspiring. However, as you might have guessed, my last name and most of my ancestry is German. While my ancestors immigrated before uh, things went downhill there, this path is rather emphatically closed to me. However, if your own ancestry is more conducive to this strategy, by all means, go ahead.

Especially if you’re Irish.