Americans love to say we are fighting an enemy. Presidents do it in order to mobilize the nation and boost their egos.

Johnson had a war on poverty and Nixon declared a war on cancer while, in both instances, they oversaw a real one in Vietnam. Reagan and Bush 41 had their wars on drugs and crime along with various armed conflicts in Beirut, Nicaragua, Kuwait, and tiny Grenada during their 12 years.

Clinton battled in Kosovo and won while he lost the battle for Health Care at home. Bush 43 and Obama had the war on terror domestically but did not defeat our enemies on the battlefields in the Middle East.

Trump also calls himself a wartime president not because our armed forces are still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, but because of the battle every American at home is waging against COVID-19. The Presidents of the United States have had the country in a fighting war in one form or another since I was in grade school 60 years ago.

Is war the right term to describe anything but actual combat with an armed enemy? Poverty, drugs, cancer, crime, and inadequate healthcare may be destroying our society, but for the most part, they are internal and self-inflicted problems. Even terror is more an existential threat to the nation than an actual one. And during all these supposed wars, what have civilians been asked to sacrifice?

My father was too young to fight in World War II and my grandfathers were too old. Any sacrifices my parents and grandparents made were on the home front. Ration books were needed to buy gasoline, meat, and sugar. But these were the same people that had known hardship during the “Great Depression.” To this day, my mother hates parsnips and turnips because they were so much of her diet growing up.

During Vietnam, civilians weren’t asked to have meatless days or not drive their cars. It was pretty good on the home front for most Americans. That war would have continued much longer if it weren’t for the draft. At some point, forcing too many unwilling 19-year old boys to die for national pride is not sustainable.

After that conflict, a brilliant idea occurred to our politicians! Why not introduce an all-volunteer force with nobody forced to serve. That would eliminate most of us having to give up anything including our lives involuntarily for the country.  You no longer needed buy-in to have an endless war. And that premise has worked well ever since.

Interestingly, soldiers have been in an actual state of combat since 1941 and haven’t been in a declared war since 1945. The Congress gets to complain and take no responsibilities. While sending our men and women into harm’s way, our Presidents can ignore that fact when it is not convenient or embrace it when it is. In the meantime, they can declare war on all sorts of things including, currently, a virus.

Since civilians have not been asked to sacrifice anything for 75 years, we are not very good at it. In fact, while we have been in all these wars both real and rhetorical, we have demanded more government services while also demanding to pay less taxes. Our nation has nothing to show for any of this except a huge deficit and no victories.

In the war against the virus, we are asked to remain at home and limit our interaction with others. Besides toilet paper and hand sanitizer, our stores are stocked. There has been no income tax surcharge to defer some of the costs. If you are like me, your travel has been curtailed and a vacation has been cancelled. That is not much of a sacrifice.

We don’t do sacrifice well even when thousands of Americans are dying. The most burning question in this war is “Will I catch the virus or not. If I do will I be able to have adequate treatment and finally have a test to confirm the diagnosis?”

In Florida where I live, it seems the greatest sacrifice that many may be asked to make is not to play golf. The furor that has erupted reminds me of the protests of the 60s only with the affluent protesters having more gray hair. A few weeks without golf would seem to be too much of a sacrifice for our pampered civilians to make…even for their own health and that of their loved ones.

For you see we are in a battle. Not with guns and tanks but against a virus. Our economy has cratered. Many businesses will not reopen. Our children have missed school. People will be in debt perhaps lose their homes.

None of that is too much a price for victory. But here in Martin County, Florida, the great sacrifice of closed golf courses is too much to bear.