November 10, 2008

Our society is built, in many ways, around a cycle of seasons and commemorations. In winter, we look forward to Spring’s greens and Summer’s heat; in summer heat, we look forward to the colors of Fall and the life-bringing snows of Winter.

“The most persistent sound which reverberates through men's history is the beating of war drums.”  ~
Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up

Many of us remember and honor events of millennia past: it should come as no surprise that most of those are associated with violence, with the shedding of blood, and with violent death. Passover when the Angel of Death honored the blood of lambs painted on doorposts, Hanukkah when a tiny miracle of oil let liberty be rekindled, Purim when a nation was saved from murder, Christmas when the hope of the world was come (in a land torn with war and bloodshed, then and now), and Passover (Easter) when One bled and died that all might live.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

And many of us also remember more recent events: Independence Day when liberty was proclaimed “unto all the land and the inhabitants thereof” in the midst of years of war; and the 2^nd of March, when a few brave men in a tiny little Texas town braved the might of an entire nation for the cause of liberty when guns were already flashing and armies marching; and the 5^th of November, when one man stood up to proclaim that even those who claim to be “the people’s representatives” can still be tyrants; and others.

"We few, we Band of Brothers. For he who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."
–Prince Hal (William Shakespeare, Henry V)

We remember days of founding events (almost always associated with war), like the 14^th of June (Establishment of the US Army, celebrated nationally as Flag Day), the 17^th of September (Constitution Day), and the 15^th of December (Bill of Rights Day). And then we have memorials: the 7^th of December, the 11^th of September, and Patriots’ Day (the 19^th of April, anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the fall of the Branch Davidian Compound and the Oklahoma City bombing).

"A society that does not have the will to let its warriors die fighting will not long survive. A civilization that values its very being less than the dignity of its sworn enemies should be morally prepared to fail."
-Sergeant David Goldich, USMC.

We also have general memorial days, such as the 1^st of November (All Saints’ Day), which has in the US been largely replaced by Memorial Day, in May or Confederate Memorial Day (on the 26^th of April or other dates in various states); originally called Decoration Day, when graves would be decorated. Originally, Decoration or Memorial Day was a day to remember the war dead of the region and the state: in fact, most Southern States did NOT celebrate what is today a Federal Holiday on the last Monday in May. Today, Memorial Day is a day for remembering all of a family’s and community’s dead. Although revived somewhat since 1991, it is not really a “military” day anymore.

“Heroism is latent in every human soul - However humble or unknown, they (the veterans) have renounced what are accounted pleasures and cheerfully undertaken all the self-denials - privations, toils, dangers, sufferings, sicknesses, mutilations, life-”
- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

That brings us to Veterans Day. Unlike most memorial days, most days we celebrate in a civic manner, Veterans Day remembers not just the dead, but the living as well. It started (as many other holy days did) as something else: Armistice Day: the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month, when the “Great War” came to an end. It is honored not just in the United States but throughout the British Commonwealth, known variously as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day or Poppy Day: in the US the name was changed after World War II. While it is used to honor all who have worn a military uniform (and even their immediate families), it is particularly used to honor those who have served overseas and those who have served in combat.

“But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for, Is their monument today, and for aye.”
~Thomas Dunn English

Why is this important? After all, are not Americans the evil occupiers and conquerors of the world? Are not our imperial ambitions something to be scorned, condemned, and rejected in all ways? Are not our soldiers, sailors, and airmen nothing but evil tools (carrying and using even more evil tools) of an imperial presidency and a legislature more corrupt and power-hungry than any since Rome herself? Why should we honor anyone who served, except perhaps those who were drafted (enslaved) to serve once upon a time?

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid"
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Have not all our wars been the fault of Wall Street, of greed for power and wealth? Did we not lust after Canada (in 1812), after Texas and a third of Mexico (in 1845), for more control and power of the central government (in 1861), for colonies (in 1898), for “respect” and “world domination” and to form a new world order (in 1916)? Did we not goad the Japanese into war and then again seek world domination and a new world order in 1941? Trick the North Koreans and then the Chinese into war in 1950? Invade and destroy a peasant nation of rice farmers in 1960-1974? Surround, threaten and ultimately destroy the Soviet Union and its allies for the sake of expanding the evils of capitalism and religion around the globe? Trick Iraq into invading Kuwait in 1991 so we could justify our own military-industrial complex after the end of the Cold War? Attack our own cities and kill our own people in order to have an excuse to invade and occupy a key piece of terrain to give us control of future sources of resources in central Eurasia? And the use the same lame excuse and bogus claims to again invade and occupy a key land to give us control of petroleum to feed our greed for everything and our consumption likened to that of ancient oriental potentates? How can we honor the people who facilitated that?

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and
patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
— John Stuart Mill --

To listen to so many people today, including so many who call themselves libertarians, not just the liberals and the transnational socialists and humanists, this is exactly what we should NOT do. Not only is it wrong to honor those who served, not only wrong to honor those who died, it is wrong to let ANYONE honor those people.

I respectfully disagree.

We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
— George Orwell --

For more than two centuries, indeed, from the time that people first lived upon this continent, there have been those willing to step forth, whether entirely voluntarily or when ordered to do so, to defend their homes, their families, their communities, and especially since a fateful day in Massachusetts Colony on a distant Spring day in 1775, in defense of liberty and freedom. Not all were in uniform – indeed, some were barely clothed. Not all were even armed; those who did not believe it right to shed ANY human blood nevertheless have constantly stepped forward to help defend these precious things.

From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
--Thomas Jefferson--

The vast majority of them knew that all too often, they had to step forward, to give up lives of peace, to fight and all too often to kill and die, because someone had failed: politicians and diplomats, yes, but sometimes the very people that they were defending had failed, if in nothing else than that they chose the wrong politicians and diplomats – and even worse, believed those poor specimens of humanity. Nevertheless, they came forward and learned and then applied the ways of war. They VOLUNTARILY gave up the very rights for which they fought, that others might have them now or in the future. (Yes, even the conscripts voluntarily gave up the rights – for there are and always have been many ways in which to avoid the draft, or to avoid fighting if drafted, ranging from draft dodging to self-inflicted wounds to desertion.)

Though all under heaven be at peace, if the art of war be forgotten there is peril.
— Chinese proverb

There were no doubt, in the tens of millions who have worn the uniform (or non-uniform) and served in the names of the United States of America, the Confederate States of America, the Green Mountain Republic (Vermont), the Republic of Texas, the Bear Flag Republic, the fifty sovereign States and dozens of territories of this Union, and the hundreds of tribes, clans, and confederations that have existed in this land; those who served only for glory, or for wealth, or for power, or as the lackeys and henchmen of some political leader or another. And there are, no doubt, those who served so that they could service their most evil and base desires: to kill, to maim, to steal, to rape, to inflict cruelty on others. But I submit, these were in the minority, the very tiny minority. Virtually all of the men and women who have served have done so in the honest and sincere belief that they were indeed protecting their homes, their loved ones, and their community from “the war’s desolation” and that they were, in the long-term, seeking to bring the same freedom, liberties, peace, and prosperity to other peoples of the world that we believe we have had in this land.

If a man does his best, what else is there?
- General George S. Patton

Did we always do that? No. Did we always succeed in what we set out to do, base or honorable? No. But we – the tens of million who fought and supported those who fought – tried our best to do so. And many times, we succeeded. Even AFTER making the mistakes that caused the wars in the first place, even with the mistakes that we made in the wars, and in the occupations that followed the wars. Even when the soldiers and sailors and airmen were used by Congress and the President for evil purposes, the benefits to liberty and to freedom (of those who survived, and their descendants) were present. Could we have done it better, and differently? Absolutely. But perfection is NOT an option. We must learn from our mistakes, for we cannot undo them. Even so, our record (tarnished as it is) is far better than the rest of the world: our soldiers have not fought and died only for glory or loot, our armies have not been sent forth publicly and specifically to conquer for king or emperor or shogun or priest, our military might has not been used directly to fill the coffers of our government with loot taken from our enemies, or worse, their conquests. We have tried to go to war for honorable reasons. British armies did not go to war in India or Africa or even Canada to liberate the natives from tyranny; French armies and German armies did not invade Russia to bring freedom to serfs or free conquered provinces. Even Peruvian armies did not invade Chile to bring liberty. We did not invade Korea or Japan to support the claims of kingship of a son or relative of an American prince. Even Marxism and French humanism got the idea of “liberation” from American sources. We have sincerely believed that virtually all our wars have been for the cause of liberty – our own and others. Yes, sometimes we have deluded ourselves, been hypocrites. But it is an honorable failure. Even our most ghastly mistakes: the wars against the Amerind, and the vicious and needless war against the Confederacy, were and could make claim to be wars of defense and for liberty. We should be sick over them, learn from them, from our mistakes, but never simply dismiss them as nothing but wars of power, conquest, and glory. We need not paint them blacker than they really are.

Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry.
— Oliver Cromwell

Today’s veterans did not march through Georgia, they did not scream that nits make lice and burn whole villages, they did not fire-bomb cities nor murder and hide the bodies of civilians. They have served, in Korea, in Vietnam, in Lebanon and Somalia and Honduras and Haiti and Dominica and the Sinai and Bosnia and now Afghanistan and Mesopotamia, in the sincere and honest belief that (despite the evils of politicians and enemies and contractors and Wall Street) that their service is in the cause of not just independence, but liberty and freedom for both Americans and for those in the lands that they serve in. Ultimately, if we do not remember and do not honor the men and women who now (and have for more than 30 years) volunteer completely to serve the cause of liberty, as expressed in their oath to “defend and protect the Constitution of these united States,” and do not recognize that they, as much or more than the vast bulk of the population, understand and respect and honor the liberties which our Constitution was created to preserve, then we shall get armies like those of the European and Asian and Latin American powers have had for centuries. Armies that oppress their own people first, and then those of other lands. Armies that support and are loyal to leaders, to factions, and NOT to ideals and liberty and freedom and independence. Do we want that?

In keeping with that, let me share a few more words and songs that, to me, remember those who have served: those who have died in war or died from war, or have died in peace but served honorably, if sometimes mistakenly, the cause of liberty.

REMEMBER

“Someday, and I hope it never comes, there may be a time when the Western hills are empty again and the land will go back to wilderness and the old, hard ways.

“Enemies may come into our country and times will have changed, but then the boys will come down from the old high hills and belt on their guns again.

“They can do it if they have to. The guns are hung up, the cows roam fat and lazy, but the old spirit is still there, just as it was when the longhorns came up the trail from Texas, and the boys washed the creeks for gold.”

REQUIEM FOR COMRADES GONE (Tune: Jerusalem by Blakely)

This for the friends we had of old
Friends for a lifetime’s love and cheer.
This for the friends who come no more
Who cannot be among us here.

We’ll not forget, O Lord we pray,
These hallowed dead, these deeds of fame.
Where they have gone, we will follow soon
Into the darkness and the flame.

Then we shall rise, our duty done,
Freed from all pain and sorrow here,
We’ll leave behind death’s painful sting,
And keep alive our honor dear.

And they will stand beside us then
All who we loved and hoped to see
And they shall sing, a glad AMEN
To cheer that final victory.

Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear – O clouds unfold
Bring me my chariot of fire.

We shall not cease our faithful watch
Nor shall the sword sleep in our hand
Till we have gone beyond death’s door
To join that fair immortal band.

MEMORIUM (Tune: Day is dying)

Blood was shed today by one,
And her life on earth is done;
Now we honor this brave deed,
and we mourn this loss indeed, and now we cry:

Holy, High and Holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Now we come and cry to Thee,
Keep our land and people free,
Oh, Lord, Most High.

Day is dying in the West,
Heav’n is touching earth with rest.
As we lay our comrade down,
to rest until the trump shall sound, to call her Home.

Holy, High and Holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Now we come and cry to Thee,
Keep our land and people free,
Oh, Lord, Most High.

As we fight against the foe,
of our God and all we know,
Lord of Angels, let our eyes
Never through the dark’ning skies Lose sight of Thee.

Holy, High and Holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Now we come and cry to Thee,
Keep our land and people free,
Oh, Lord, Most High.

Lord Most High, now hear our prayer,
lead us not unto despair:
Take us Home with Thee above,
end this War with Thy great love, Thy Will be done.

Holy, High and Holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Now we come and cry to Thee,
Keep our land and people free,
Oh, Lord, Most High.

THE MILITARY HYMN (Tune: Melita (The Navy Hymn))

Eternal Father, strong to save, (NAVY, original verse)
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Christ, the Lord of hill and plain, (ARMY)
O'er which our traffic runs amain,
By mountain pass or valley low,
Wherever Lord our brethren go,

Protect them by Thy guarding hand
From every peril on the land!

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly (AIR FORCE)
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;

Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!

Eternal Father, grant, we pray, (MARINES)
To all Marines, both night and day,
The courage, honor, strength, and skill
Their land to serve, thy law fulfill

Be thou the shield forevermore
From every peril to the Corps.

Almighty Ruler of the all, (SPACE)
Whose Power extends to great and small,
Who guides the stars with steadfast law,
Whose least creation fills with awe,

O grant thy mercy and thy grace,
To those who venture into space.

O Trinity of love and power! (CLOSING)
Our brethren shield in danger's hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them whereso'er they go.

Thus evermore shall rise to Thee,
Glad praise from space, air, land, and sea!

Eternal Father, Lord of hosts, (COAST GUARD)
Watch o’er the men who guard our coasts.
Protect them from the raging seas
And give them light and life and peace.

Grant them from Thy great throne above
The shield and shelter of Thy love.

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly (ARMED FORCES)
And those who on the ocean ply;
Be with our troops upon the land,
And all who for their country stand:

Be with these guardians day and night
And may their trust be in Thy might.

Creator, Father, Who first breathed (WOUNDED)
In us the life that we received,
By power of Thy breath restore
The ill, and men with wounds of war.

Bless those who give their healing care,
That life and laughter all may share.

God, who dost still the restless foam, (HOME FRONT)
Protect the ones we love at home.
Provide that they should always be
By Thine own grace both safe and free.

O Father, hear us when we pray
For those we love so far away.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (Jesus, the Christ, John 15:13 (New American Standard Bible))

Nathan Barton is writing this from a wonderful place in the West, which might be in the Black Hills of South Dakota or Wyoming, or might be in one of the Four Corners States. Exactly where it is, the breezes blow with the scent of liberty, and the sound of the pines or the pinions is the sound of freedom. For thousands of years, people have fought and died for the liberty that Americans in the great spaces of the West enjoy, and he writes these commentaries in the hopes that continued generations will be able to do so, until the end of Time. Visit the blog: The Gospel Sower

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