And so this is Christmas (Part II); War is NOT over

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Because “The Hundred Years’ War” lasted from 1337 through 1453, I’m proposing historians rename it either “The 116 Years War” or “The Most Inaccurately Named War.”

Didn’t  anyone on either side say after about 70 or 80 years they should just title it “The War No One Will Remember Because it Just Sort of Ended in a Confusing Draw War?”

I mention all this because I saw an Army veteran and a Navy veteran nearly come to blows over the result of the Army-Navy football. They were shouting so many profanities I suspect an Air Force guy would have reflexively grounded them both.

Or would an Air Force guy have told them to take off?

Anyway, the Navy vet was gloating the sailor boys have won the last 13 contests in a row.

This made the Army guy explode, “Well, what the heck do you expect! You guys haven’t had anything to do to defend the country since you sank the last German U-boat! And in the last 13 years, all our best Army guys have been off fighting three wars!”

Three wars? Have I lost count?

I read the newspapers and try to keep up with current events.

I know we’ve been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, and that hostilities involving U.S. personnel have been raging in Iraq since 2003.

Where was war No. 3? 

I’m one of those guys who loathes war, while acknowledging watching The History Channel would be a whole lot less interesting without it.

But, honest, I never dreamed an unbroken span of going on 14 years of my life would occur during times when America was actively engaged in multiple overseas wars.

That’s 14 years of victories, setbacks, political bluster, hostage videos, poignant Christmas reports from Walter Reed and more than 6,745 flag-draped coffins of American servicemen and women who once used to care about things like the outcome of meaningless college football games.

It’s exhausting.

And, yeah, I get the irony of a guy complaining about the exhaustion of merely reading about Americans at war.

I think it’s because I sense the future and realize we’re engaged in wars that’ll never end. Are we 1/10th of the way into what will someday be taught to high school history students as “America’s Hundred Years War?”

It looks that way to me.

Do you even remember the names of our current wars? 

In Afghanistan, it’s officially “Operation Enduring Freedom.” In Iraq (which ostensibly ended in 2011), it’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” As each has been going on longer than 10 years — the two longest in American history — we should have the opportunity to rename the conflicts.

I’d make some snarky suggestions, but I wouldn’t want to wind up the first casualty in what could become “The War Against Smart Ass Bloggers.”

This is the season so many turn to the Prince of Peace. Me, I find myself thinking all the time about wars and the men and women waging them on my behalf.

And so this is Christmas.

Those are the opening words to the 1972 John Lennon Christmas song that is so tuneful I fear the peacenik prayer behind it is all but forgotten.

The actual title is “Happy Xmas (War is Over), the deliberate X-ing out of Christ no doubt an early volley in what was to become the War on Christmas by a man who once speculated he was more popular than Jesus.

It’s now played without any context and accepted as a Christmas staple with the same holiday cheeriness as “Rudolph” and “Jingle Bells,” when in fact the title is one glaring factual mistake. It was written three years prior to the end of the Vietnam War about which it was written.

And 42 years later it looks like war is never over.

I told my friend Joe about renaming the inaccurately titled “Hundred Years’ War,” and he one-upped me.

“If you’re going to do that then you’ll need to rename World War I, ‘The Most Inaccurately Nicknamed War.’”

He’s correct.

If only “The War To End All Wars” indeed had lived up to its name.

Related . . .

And so this is Christmas (’11)

And so this is Christmas

I doubt there will be any iconic pictures of sailors planting lusty kisses on nurses snapped in Times Square today.

The bars won’t be packed with victory celebrants. Instant history lessons won’t be imparted over the school PA systems. If Americana artist Norman Rockwell were alive, he’d probably leave his easel and go shopping.

And so this is Christmas and the Iraq war is over.

It’s not even on the front page of my newspaper.

I’m already hearing critics declaring our departure after 9 years of interminable war “hasty.”

I wish the people who are in such a precious snit about our departure had shown half as much thoughtfulness cheerleading all the shock and awe that got us in.

The gloat-free high-road way of assessing the war, the one chosen by President Obama, is to say “history will judge” the wisdom of the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Well, allow me to cut to the chase:

Oops! Can we get a do-over on that one?

By coincidence, my wife and I just watched “The Devil’s Double,” the true story of Latif Yahia, who by a more grim sort of coincidence had the misfortune to be born a dead ringer for Uday Hussein, the psychopathic son of the Iraqi dictator.

Latif becomes the body double for the sadistic Uday, who is depicted -- by all accounts accurately -- as one of the most evil men to walk the planet.

It’s maybe the only movie where Saddam Hussein could come across as a voice of moderate reason.

Featuring two brilliant performances by Dominic Cooper -- I wonder if he got paid double -- playing both Uday and Latif.

The movie shows harrowing decisions Latif must make until he at long last seizes the only sensible escape to all the killing and madness.

He gets the hell out of Iraq.

U.S. troops sent Uday to hell in 2003; his father was in 2006 hanged at the hands of rival Shiite Iraqi troops who shouted the taunting name, “Muqtada!” in his ear seconds before the trap door was sprung.

He was the radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric who is now a leading religious figure in the Iraq we’re leaving behind. I guess he’s like the Iraqi Pat Robertson; he says a lot of crazy and hateful things, but he has a large following that can not be dismissed.

Richard Engel wrote what I thought was an insightful report about how when Saddam was in power, he and his fellow minority Sunnis were riding high. Now, that the pro-Iranian Shia are calling the shots, the Sunnis are now beleaguered and fearful of deadly Shiite retribution.

Without U.S. troops standing between them, sectarian violence seems assured with Iran being the chief beneficiary.

The Middle East cycle of violence over centuries old ethnic and religious hatreds grinds on.

And so this is Christmas.

That’s why I don’t feel like going out to celebrate today that war is over. Anymore, our wars are never over.

Instead, I feel like going to the airport.

I saw reports this morning showing our soldiers talking about the friends they’d lost, the high cost of war and whether it’s all been worth it.

I was struck by the one guy who’d been there since 2007 saying, heck, he was just happy he was going to be spending Christmas with his wife and four kids.

I’d like to see the guys like him getting off the planes. I’d like the see them scooping up the euphoric little children in their big strong arms that have been aching for hugs. I’d like to see the expressions on the faces of the men and women who made it home safe for a Christmas when finally no one’s shooting at them.

It’s likely the only celebration America’s most ill-advised war will ever yield.