Happy Memorial Day. Today is a national holiday to honor those who have lost their lives in defending our freedoms. This post will not be about how those freedoms have been evaporating like a clear mist before our eyes. Rather, I want this to be a reflection on what the sacrifice those men and women should mean to me and you.
I will be honest that Memorial Day has never been high on the list of important holidays for me. I guess part of it is that I don't know anyone and am not related to anyone who lost their lives in battle. This holiday has simply been another day off of work/school. I say that not in an attempt to justify or support these feelings but as an admission of my failures. I should be more thankful for those men and women and more reverant to their sacrifice.
Our Lord said that there is no greater love than to give ones life for ones friends. Christ gave his life for not just his friends, but for his enemies -- for those who hate him. In some way these soldiers have done the same. Those brave men and women gave their lives in the belief that the idea of America, that the idea of freedom is something worth dying for. Those soldiers gave their lives, not just for those that agreed with them on political and other issues of the day, but for those who disagreed with them and opposed what the soldier may have believed in.
I do not think it is fair to paint all those who have lost their lives in battle with such an idealistic brush. To be sure, there are those who were drafted into the armed forces and died that did not want to fight, that did not believe in the cause. This is no reason to disparage their memory or to honor them any less. In some ways they were simply pawns of history. In some ways they are victims of the worst part of humanity. Ultimately, I think they are best viewed as exceptional heroes. Those men and women may have had little to no choice in fighting and dying, but they gave everything they had for reasons outside their control. In my view they are more Christ-like because they set aside their will for the will of the "greater good." Just as Christ put aside his human will and did God's will, these men and women put aside their wants and desires and fought and died for something they did not believe in.
It might be easy to say that they had no choice, but that is not entirely true. They could have lived out their lives in prison for not complying. They could have committed crimes so as not to be forced to go. They could have done violence to their fellow soldiers to rebel against their forced services, a sad trend we are seeing play itself our for other reasons in the past few years. They had the option of any number of ways of getting out of service. While none of these things may have been appealing options, they were options that most likely wouldn't have resulted in their untimely deaths. Instead these men and women chose to fight and die so that we may sit back in our air conditioning and attempt to judge their motivations. Today, let just be thankful to those people. Today let us rejoice that forced service is no longer a reality in America. Today, let us reflect on how we can be more like them, more like Christ and focus on forgoing our will and doing God's will.
"If you want to be happy, really really happy, use your talents to serve others." - Eduardo Verastegui
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