Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

Chapter 4 examines fundamental questions about what kind of society we want to live in. Junger moves from the specific condition of soldiers to the more general position of workers in US society. Noting the irony of the anti-war bumper sticker “no blood for oil” during the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 given that a machine that runs on oil was used to broadcast such a message, Junger connects war to everyday life in US society. Although he has been cultivating this connection throughout Tribe, Chapter 4 makes it explicit. For instance, he shares his own opposition to the Iraq War but then asserts that the duplicity of some antiwar rhetoric (such as the bumper sticker) bespeaks a larger hypocrisy across the political spectrum and throughout social life. The American public, Junger argues, is not simply disconnected from its military; it is “disconnected from just about everything” (111). He explains that the average American worker makes a much greater sacrifice than soldiers do simply by going to work, citing workplace mortality statistics that show more workers lose their lives on the job in the United States annually than died in the entire Afghan War (111).