Many
Americans ignore our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lamenting the
price of groceries, we forget the pain of military families. We paste a
yellow ribbon on our SUV, or send a care package of cookies, but God
forbid we pay more taxes. In fact, we’re the first American generation
to send troops into battle without a war tax.
But I speak of war’s moral weight. Our troops have no luxury for simplistic judgments like the left’s “Peace now!” or the right’s “America love it or leave it!” They shoulder burdens of decision-making and ethical ambiguity unknown to civilians: burdens that wound the soul.
When is violence justified? Am I defending the innocent or taking revenge? Who do I really fight for: The politicians my own countrymen disdain? My family? My commanding officer? The buddy beside me? Is war about freedom and democracy, really? Is anything worth killing for?
In a college distance learning program, I teach soldiers deployed to combat zones. They are the most thoughtful, morally engaged people I’ve ever known. One wrote: “Americans look at soldiers with respect, but how does God look upon us? What do we tell him? ‘I took a life because someone told me to?’ I think about this so often, deep inside, it makes me sick.”
Whether you are Republican or Democrat, please embrace them as they return, carrying the burdens we didn’t have to bear. Who but you and I will care for their wounded hearts?
(This piece was published in several newspapers as a letter to the editor, such as the Olympian, Olympia WA.)
But I speak of war’s moral weight. Our troops have no luxury for simplistic judgments like the left’s “Peace now!” or the right’s “America love it or leave it!” They shoulder burdens of decision-making and ethical ambiguity unknown to civilians: burdens that wound the soul.
When is violence justified? Am I defending the innocent or taking revenge? Who do I really fight for: The politicians my own countrymen disdain? My family? My commanding officer? The buddy beside me? Is war about freedom and democracy, really? Is anything worth killing for?
In a college distance learning program, I teach soldiers deployed to combat zones. They are the most thoughtful, morally engaged people I’ve ever known. One wrote: “Americans look at soldiers with respect, but how does God look upon us? What do we tell him? ‘I took a life because someone told me to?’ I think about this so often, deep inside, it makes me sick.”
Whether you are Republican or Democrat, please embrace them as they return, carrying the burdens we didn’t have to bear. Who but you and I will care for their wounded hearts?
(This piece was published in several newspapers as a letter to the editor, such as the Olympian, Olympia WA.)
