This pacifist, too, thanks the veterans

(The following was my op-ed that was published, with a different title, in the Statesman Journal)

On Veterans Day, my practice has been to call or email a couple of people who are close to me in order to thank them. One is a 93-year-old who lives in Southern California. Jack was a teenager when he was drafted to serve as a bombardier during World War II.

While that old habit will continue this year too, the pacifist in me is immensely thankful to the U.S. military for marching to the orders from the commander-in-chief to fight an invisible enemy far away from the U.S.: the Ebola virus.

In September, President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. military would assist in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus, which since then has claimed even more lives and has infected thousands more. The arrival of the virus in the U.S. also underscores the urgency to fight this enemy in its original home in the severely affected countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

A few days after the president's decision, an old high school friend, who has returned to India after a career that took him all over the world, commented on my blog: "The U.S. action of committing troops to fight the disease is probably one of the finest acts of the Obama presidency. Your government didn't have to do it, but it did. That is the best of America on show." The best, indeed!

"Operation United Assistance," which is the Department of Defense's name for this assignment, will provide logistical and medical support to various agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), that are involved in the international effort to battle the virus.

Doctors Without Borders, which was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 "in recognition of the organization's pioneering humanitarian work on several continents," welcomed this announcement even though it typically has not favored military involvements in the past. Only the military "has the rapid deployment capability and chain-of-command structure necessary now," said Dr. Joanne Liu, the president of Doctors Without Borders.

Following up on the U.S. military's involvement, China is also sending to Liberia an elite unit of its army, which has plenty of experience fighting another infectious disease from a decade ago: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

The U.S. military is best positioned for such an effort, with its vast logistical preparation. Above and beyond that, the military training to follow orders every step along the way will be immensely important, because all it takes is one breach in the protocol for the Ebola virus to infect a person. That level of precision in implementing protocols will not come easily to civilians like me, who even have trouble consistently following the rules of driving.

While the Ebola virus is an invisible and silent enemy, it is perhaps even deadlier than many visible enemies that the military has engaged in past battlefronts. This theater of war in West Africa is as critical to humanity as was the front where Jack served as a bombardier.

My thanks to the valiant troops who are assisting in this just war and fighting the good fight.