In honor of Veterans Day, I set out to write an article about my father’s brief stint in the army. He was 20 in 1943 when the call came to serve his country during World War II. Just three years before, he left Pacentro, Italy, to join his father and other family members in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Like his fellow immigrants, he came with the hope of a better, more prosperous lifestyle than he might have had in his hometown.
Fortunately for my dad, he never saw a battleground. He did his basic training at Camp Custer in Michigan and Camp Robinson in Arkansas. Due to stomach ulcers that kept him in the infirmary more than on duty, he was granted a medical discharge six months later.
But not every soldier was that lucky.
While doing some research about Veterans Day, I found a list of the 11 wars or conflicts in which the United States has been involved. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly 1.2 million men and women have lost their lives in military service from the American Revolutionary War in 1775 to the current Global War on Terror. Still others were left injured or disabled in big and small ways.
I admit that my understanding of world history is limited, and I find the study of politicians and political movements – and the vitriolic discourse that accompanies it – to be wearisome to say the least. But, the little that I read got me to wondering if the spark that sets nations on fire for war isn’t freedom, but greed. Greed for more land, more wealth, more power.
The men and women who fight the wars put their lives on the line in the name of freedom, but the powers behind the battles seem to be in it for more of what we already have in abundance.
For freedom or something else
L.P. Jacks, an English educator, philosopher and Unitarian minister who was prominent during World War I and II, had the same thought. He said,
What is the cause of the terrible calamities which are now falling on the civilized world? Surely it lies in the fact that the economic development of mankind has outstripped the moral development. The nations of the world have grown richer without becoming wiser and juster in a corresponding degree.”
Writing about the dangers that lurk when “the moral development of the man’s character” doesn’t keep pace with the economic development of his wealth, Jacks wrote:
Material prosperity has taken the world unawares; morally the nations were unprepared for it; some of them made ready for war, but none of them made ready for the greater dangers of peace. The nations have acquired all this wealth, but in the deepest sense they don’t know what to do with it; they don’t know how it ought to be handled; they don’t know how to make it a blessing, or even how to prevent it from being a curse. This disparity between the moral and the economic development is the prime cause of our present trouble.”
How much greater is the disparity today?
There’s another way
Many of us pray for peace and some dedicate their life’s work to making peace with our global brothers and sisters, and rightly so. But the way I see it, if there is any hope for an end to devastating wars and the mounting trend of senseless violence, it is in the mercy of God who longs to regenerate the souls of men and women toward love and service through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.
Until we find ourselves grafted into the family of God – loved unconditionally and forgiven of our sin – we cannot know true freedom and real peace. Nor do we have the power to live in a way that nurtures inner peace, let alone world peace.
Rather than fight for freedom and peace with spears, guns and other destructive weapons, we must first receive it from the loving hand of the God who created us to be reflections of his good and perfect nature.
Listen to what the writer of the Book of James said centuries ago to his fellow believers who faced the same kinds of corruption, violence and wars in their day.
“Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.” (James 4:1-3, The Message)
Battle wounds
Unlike my father, my husband, Paul, was “boots on the ground” in Vietnam. It would be a lie to say he went willingly into battle. He trusted his leaders that our freedoms were endangered and chose to respond to his draft notice rather than find refuge in Canada.
The gentlest of men, he was terrified from the time he was inducted in 1966 to the day he returned 18 months later in 1967. He survived mortar attacks on his barracks and a hotel fire in Taipei while on R&R. At 19 years of age, he shot into the dark, dense swamps toward opposing forces – soldiers often far younger than he – only to avoid being shot himself.
Like all who have seen the face of evil in a front-line attack, Paul came home forever changed. He loved our country, for sure, and was proud of his service, but he suffered physical and emotional distress because of it until the day he died.
A very different story
I’m glad for my father, that his experience in the army never came close to his son-in-law’s. When I asked him what he remembered about his experience at Camp Robinson, he said he enjoyed meeting new people and having fun with the other soldiers.
My dad saw his role in the service as an opportunity to find meaning in the madness of war. He managed to get 30 or 40 guys up every Sunday morning to go to church. The priest was so happy – and shocked – to see such a large congregation, he offered to teach my dad to play the organ.
He remembers the fun he had dancing with the girls in town on Saturday nights. And the first time he sang Bing Crosby’s hit, Moonlight Becomes You and the classic Neapolitan song O Solo Mio at “the big theater.”
His fears in the service were more about flubbing up the lyrics and getting caught past curfew than about where he might be shipped out to when the time came and fighting for his life.
Band of brothers
He enjoyed meeting a group of Spanish-American soldiers who taught him Latin tunes that he sings to this day. And when a fist fight broke out between an Italian friend and a fellow soldier for calling him a “dago” resulted in serious injuries, he took to heart his sergeant’s rebuke.
“He told us, ‘This is the U. S. Army and we are all brothers here.’”
If only the rest of the world could take that to heart.
Love wins every time
My dad’s reverence for God, faith in Jesus Christ and belief in the value of all human life is the spark that sets him on fire to love on people rather than fight with them. And over and over, when I tell people how loved my dad is among his fellow veterans where he lives today, without fail, they say, “Who wouldn’t love your dad.”
Love leads to more love. If only love would lead the nations.
I can think of few people who deserve more respect and honor than the men and women of our armed forces. Those who enlist to uphold democracy and work to protect the American ideal of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the sake of all can never be thanked enough. To all of you, I say, thank you for your great sacrifice and service. May you be blessed beyond measure for your love for God and our country.
