( The San Diego Union-Tribune) – To mark this year’s Veterans Day, the fifth anniversary of the foundation of Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, D.C., and the 50th anniversary of the end of Vietnam War, the Center for War and Society at San Diego State University will be hosting a completely booked event aboard San Diego’s USS Midway museum with Oliver Stone, America’s foremost director of films on the Vietnam War, on the evening of Nov. 14. 

A former aircraft carrier is the perfect location, as in not too distant waters, the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln deployed to the Gulf of Oman, off the coast of Iran, in July 2024. In 2019, it was the same carrier strike group then-President Donald Trump deployed to deter Iran.

The conversation with Stone on the Midway will examine how America’s relationship with war, both before and after Vietnam, have informed and influenced his work over the past 40 years, most notably beginning with “Platoon” in 1986. He will discuss how those wars have influenced U.S. foreign policy and American society, how they provoked Americans to think about concepts and consequences of empire and military power overseas, and how they ultimately helped establish the framework for the “forever wars” in which the United States now participates.

One of the forever wars continues more than a year after violence that began on Oct. 7, 2023, between Israel and Hamas, making the Mediterranean Sea a combat theater. American forces are still deployed off the coast of Lebanon to deter Hamas’ ally Hezbollah, even though it is mostly on the defensive after Israel began its offensive, and to withdraw American citizens from there, despite that the U.S. left some behind.

Normally, the Lincoln is the flagship of a carrier strike group deployed in the Pacific, but its mission to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman was extended even further in September to deter Iran.

Furthermore, over the last year the U.S. and Israel have expanded their war to the Red Sea to attack the Yemeni Houthi militia for targeting international shipping in solidarity with Hamas, bringing war to the three seas in the region.

Over the last year the U.S. has mobilized local personnel and military assets, from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Naval Base Coronado and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (otherwise known as “Top Gun”). The Lincoln’s aircraft includes an  F-35C strike aircraft squadron from Miramar, (the planes often seen flying over Interstates 15 and 805), and two helicopter squadrons from Coronado’s Naval Air Station North Island.

The Lincoln is escorted by the San Diego-based destroyer USS O’Kane, which carries long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, costing $2 million each, Washington’s preferred weapon to strike the Houthis.

“Carrier,” Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024

Just the deployment of those two vessels represents 6,500 personnel. Carrier group deployments are routine, and the Lincoln will return to San Diego in mid-November, only to be replaced with more B-52s and destroyers. The possibility of American forces being targeted or lost has increased exponentially, just as a Houthi missile almost hit the USS Eisenhower last June, demonstrating that American strikes have not degraded their ability to attack vessels in the Red Sea.

If American forces were lost in combat, Washington would escalate its presence in the region, rather than withdrawing from the conflict, succumbing to “mission creep.” In these three naval conflict theaters there is no articulated end goal as to when “mission accomplished” can be declared.

The presidential election will not change the number of forces deployed to these theaters, which are likely to be maintained or even increase.

During Trump’s first presidency, he routinely deployed B-52 bombers and the Lincoln off the coast of Iran to deter the Islamic Republic in 2019, almost going to war in January 2020 after the U.S. assassinated one of Iran’s generals.

The U.S. left Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan 2021. It seemed the forever wars had ended. Yet they continued to shape San Diego County, with veterans making it home after serving multiple tours in both places. The wars also sent a whole generation of Afghan and Iraqi refugees fleeing those conflicts to San Diego.

Finally, the 2023 war has led to another sort of mobilization: protests in San Diego, on its campuses, even in front of the Midway itself, on the anniversary of Oct. 7. The war that began in October 2023 has the potential to serve as the third forever war of the 21^st century, ironically giving Stone further material for his next film.

Al-Marashi is an associate professor of history at Cal State San Marcos and a visiting scholar at University of San Diego and San Diego State University, and lives in Encinitas.

Reprinted from The San Diego Union-Tribune> with the author’s permission.