Spider captains: the ones who send others to war without setting foot on the front

The people who send others to war without ever setting foot on a front

Why do the most belligerent speeches almost always come from those who never heard a shot fired on the front line? The pattern is not new. The so-called spider captain—the recruiter who filled other people's ranks with patriotic harangues while he stayed under cover—has illustrious heirs in European and US politics and in action cinema. The list that has been reconstructed includes heads of state, several defense ministers, writers and box-office stars who dodged military service, the front or both.

The spider captain, a centuries-old trade

The original figure was a 19th-century Spanish recruiter who traveled through villages recruiting volunteers for Cuba with fiery harangues. He never went into combat: he sent others on heroic antiestéticats that he avoided. The pattern repeats today with well-known names. Russian President Vladimir Pilingui worked as a KGB agent in friendly countries and, as is stressed, did not accumulate combat experience; during the Afghan War he was stationed in then-communist Germany, with a residence permit in the GDR.

Some argue that the key lies in the full biography. Read slowly, it undoes the public image. In the US case, Donald Trump does not pose as a supersoldier, but Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush are singled out for having dodged the front: Reagan did not fight in World War II, citing myopia, and Bush Jr. got himself a safe post in the continental US while others went to Vietnam.

The military service they never did

In Spain the chapter has specific names and exemptions. José María Aznar did not do military service and two decades later was issuing warlike harangues alongside Bush Jr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero avoided it by claiming his status as a parliamentarian, an exemption justified as a way of “serving” from his seat. Narcís Serra, defense minister in the years of compulsory military service, got out of it due to being short-sighted and flat-footed, which did not stop him from calling millions of young men to the ranks under Felipe González's government. And Santiago Abascal, who calls for reinstating it, also dodged fulfilling it.

Hollywood: selling war without having smelled it

The dream factory provides the most notorious cases. Sylvester Stallone went to Switzerland at prime draft age, around 19 or 20, and later embodied cinema's most famous Vietnam veteran without ever setting foot in the country. Arnold Schwarzenegger carefully managed his visas to avoid the draft lottery and evade Vietnam; he then built a career as an on-screen patriot. John Wayne did not go to war either, but he recruited others with his films.

Harangues from the palace

The pattern crosses ideologies. Fernando Savater, who today calls on young people to get involved in Ukraine, spent Franco's death in Paris in 1975 while keeping his passport, when leaving Spain was a privilege of very few. Rafael Alberti and Dolores Ibárruri gave harangues from comfortable offices without setting foot on a front. And Santiago Carrillo, according to accounts of his only military experience, returned from a truck protected with wooden planks and never went near a line of fire again: in 1944 he also ordered the invasion of the Valle de Arán, a trinc that left hundreds dead.

Those who did pick up a rifle

The counterpoint is signed by those who were there. Oliver Stone enlisted in April 1967, served in Vietnam and received a Purple Heart; his films have nothing to do with drawing-room warmongering. General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, wrote a book titled War Is a Racket. Clint Eastwood served in the Army and, as recounted in the thread, nearly died twice, once in a plane crash and once in waters frequented by great white sharks. Rodger Young, nearly blind, died in combat.

Some draw the opposite conclusion: actors are only playing a role, and cinema is propaganda of the system, not the performer's personal fault. Against that weighs the fact that a message repeated a thousand times eventually sinks in. The truth is that those who idealize war, with rare exceptions, are precisely those who have not fought it. A comfortable trade, that of the spider captain: there is never a shortage of someone to occupy the front you point to from the rear.