Memorial Day
Funny, I find myself unable to articulate my thoughts on FB when it comes to stuff like Memorial Day. I live in a military town, and have quite a few ppl on my friends list that I fear would take what I say amiss. Anything other than the usual "tow the politically correct line" comments about days like today are not something I'm comfortable in saying, so I'll say nothing. Well, nothing there.
And it isn't because I don't believe we should honor our dead. Of course we should! Those who fell, and those who were captured and never returned home. Those families were and are shattered, and cannot be put back together like some Mother Goose tale.
But it's because it isn't just about asking these men and women to die for us. If it were just about dying, I would have a less difficult time hopping up and down and flag-waving with the rest. We aren't just asking someone to take a bullet or a bomb for us. We're asking them to kill for us.
That hurts me in a way I cannot explain.
We went to the Andersonville POW/MIA museum and cemetery this Saturday. And what struck me again, as it does every time I go there, is not just the horrors that the prisoners at Andersonville went through, or those at Camp Douglas, or any other POW camp here or abroad. It's that it was just regular soldiers who were put in charge of them. They had to watch over their charges and do nothing. It wasn't even that they tortured them; the prisoners lived in squalid tents, wore little clothing and starved. What does seeing something like that do to a person?
It's one of many reasons I strongly opposed the use of torture in our Guantanamo Bay facility - what happens to those men who do it? Where can you, as a person, go from there?
I do pray for our soldiers. I pray they are kept out of harm's way, whether that harm comes from "them" or from "us". I don't want them to die for me, and I don't want them to kill for me. And sure, that's 99% starry-eyed naivete, but I don't care. I know we're violent creatures that don't play well with each other as a species. But I believe also believe that God can work through us, and I have to have faith that maybe one day, He will lift us up out of our violent natures so there will be no more killing and torture and dying for these things.
And it isn't because I don't believe we should honor our dead. Of course we should! Those who fell, and those who were captured and never returned home. Those families were and are shattered, and cannot be put back together like some Mother Goose tale.
But it's because it isn't just about asking these men and women to die for us. If it were just about dying, I would have a less difficult time hopping up and down and flag-waving with the rest. We aren't just asking someone to take a bullet or a bomb for us. We're asking them to kill for us.
That hurts me in a way I cannot explain.
We went to the Andersonville POW/MIA museum and cemetery this Saturday. And what struck me again, as it does every time I go there, is not just the horrors that the prisoners at Andersonville went through, or those at Camp Douglas, or any other POW camp here or abroad. It's that it was just regular soldiers who were put in charge of them. They had to watch over their charges and do nothing. It wasn't even that they tortured them; the prisoners lived in squalid tents, wore little clothing and starved. What does seeing something like that do to a person?
It's one of many reasons I strongly opposed the use of torture in our Guantanamo Bay facility - what happens to those men who do it? Where can you, as a person, go from there?
I do pray for our soldiers. I pray they are kept out of harm's way, whether that harm comes from "them" or from "us". I don't want them to die for me, and I don't want them to kill for me. And sure, that's 99% starry-eyed naivete, but I don't care. I know we're violent creatures that don't play well with each other as a species. But I believe also believe that God can work through us, and I have to have faith that maybe one day, He will lift us up out of our violent natures so there will be no more killing and torture and dying for these things.