A Fitting Memorial

Memorial Day, like so many holidays, has lost much of its connection to its origins. For many people Memorial Day has come to mean a long weekend, the beginning of summer, perhaps the Indianapolis 500. Too often we forget that it began as a tribute to those who have died serving in the armed forces.

For peace-loving progressives, the true meaning of Memorial Day can have plenty of ambivalence. We want to honor the sacrifice of those who have died and of all those who have served or are now serving. The sacrifice of those who died needs to be remembered and respected. And yet I know I am a bit uneasy with what seems like a glorification of war and the military that often comes along with remembering those who died. We tend to talk of soldiers “who gave their lives” for their country. Nobody gave his or her life; we have never had suicide missions. Soldiers don’t give their lives, they have their lives taken from them. The lives we remember on Memorial Day were not given, they were stolen. The soldiers we memorialize were brutally and violently robbed of their lives, usually in the flower of their youth.

On this Memorial Day we find ourselves once again at war. And we find ourselves in a war that more and more Americans are coming to question. People my age cannot help but be reminded of the war in Vietnam and the bitter divisions it created in our country.

We religious liberals have a long history of being advocates for peace — going all the way back to the American Civil War. I know that many of us in here today are critical of our present military involvement in Iraq. Not all of us agree about this, of course, but it is fair to say that right now George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney would not find this to be a friendly crowd.

On this Memorial Day weekend I would have us reflect on the difficult issues of war and peace. When is war justified? How can we honor the soldier without supporting a war we might think is misguided? New memorials have been created on the National Mall in Washington. We have new memorials for wars in Vietnam and World War II. I would have us reflect on what it means to remember sacrifice. I would have us ask what a truly fitting memorial for those who have died in war might look like.

I believe the first thing we need to remember is that we should never blame the soldier for the war. We must remember to honor the service and sacrifice of soldiers even if we do not support the war. In fact, we have to be especially careful to honor military service when we do oppose a war. I can remember how so many veterans of Vietnam were treated when they came home. So many were treated as though they were war criminals by people who opposed the war. We must remember that soldiers never choose the wars in which they fight; civilian leaders do.

I believe that we also have to remember the terrible cost of war for soldiers who survive. Some of the enduring costs are obvious: horrible injuries, amputations, severe disabilities. Some of the costs of war are hidden. In a sense, a part of every soldier dies in conflict. The psychological scars never fully heal. The trauma of World War II, the Korean Conflict, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and now Iraq and Afghanistan linger on.

As we remember the terrible human costs of war, we come face to face with one of humanity’s most vexing issues: is war ever justifiable? Can a peace loving people, a people who affirm peace as a fundamental human and religious value, ever justify war and violence? Philosophers and theologians have wrestled with this issue for centuries.

How we think about this is literally a matter of life and death for thousands.

My personal view is that an extreme pacifism is not persuasive. I respect those who practice complete non violence, but I cannot go there. Sometimes violence is justified at the personal level and at the international level. For example, I doubt that many of us would object to using force to stop someone with a machine gun from murdering dozens of our children in their religious education classes. I don’t think anyone would object to using violence to stop someone who is about to detonate a nuclear device in downtown Denver. Alas, the trouble with extreme hypothetical examples is that they don’t reflect the real choices that we face. Reality is a lot messier.
The tough question is, in real situations, when do we cross that line and use violence? When will violence simply make things worse? When will failure to use violence cost hundreds and thousands of lives?

Let me cite a couple of examples from the last decade or so. I believe that we should have intervened militarily in Rwanda. We and other nations stood by while hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered. Looking back, it seems clear that a relatively small use of force, preferably by an international force, could have stopped the killing.

Another example was the near genocide in the former Yugoslavia—the infamous “ethnic cleansing.” Here we have an example of force finally being used after many thousands were killed. When military force was finally used, the mass killings stopped.

I also believe that force was justified in going after Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan after the attacks of September 11. I believe we had an obligation to prevent these crazed ideologues from mounting more attacks.

Yet this example shows the pitfalls of all war and all violence. Once the dogs of war are unleashed, they run wild. Look at how 9/11 has been used as an all encompassing rationale. War is brutal and it brings out the most brutal part of our nature. There are war crimes in every war. Look at the use of torture that has disgraced our nation around the world. There are fresh reports of our military killing women and children in Iraq. We see 9/11 paranoia used to justify spying on each other.

What makes the issue of justifying war so vexing is that it is rarely a matter of simply choosing good over evil. I believe it is too easy to say we should never use military force. At the same time, I believe war is horrible and that most war can be avoided. While it is too easy to say we should never use force, it is also true that it is far too easy to resort to force. Most wars are started by people who believe the conflict will be short and casualties will be light. Leaders thought our own Civil War would last a few weeks or a few months. The same was true in both world wars. It was true in Vietnam. Sadly, it is proving to be true in Iraq. In the case of Iraq, decision makers fell in love with their own ideology. They foolishly believed we would be welcomed as liberators, that we would quickly establish a shining example of democracy. As always, the reality of war turned out to be something quite different.

War must always be a last resort — an option chosen reluctantly when other options are clearly worse.

War and preparation for war has effects that are subtle and pernicious. One effect is that today those who are asked to do the fighting have little or no relationship to our political decision makers. In the second world war, President Kennedy fought and was injured. He lost an older brother who was a pilot. The elder President Bush fought as a pilot. Members of congress had family members in the war. Much of this had changed by the time of Vietnam, but not totally. The draft was something of an equalizer. However, none of the key policy makers who chose to invade Iraq saw any combat. The last I heard, not a single member of Congress had a child serving in Iraq. Not one. There are no young Bushes or Rumsfelds or Cheneys in harm’s way.

By the time of Vietnam, virtually no college educated person saw combat unless he wanted to. I, like many of my friends, avoided military service during Vietnam. I got deferments as a teacher and then a temporary physical deferment because I had developed a kidney stone. Not one of my college classmates saw combat except one who volunteered for it because, like Norman Mailer, he wanted to write a novel about it. Those who did not avoid military service always managed to find assignments far from the front—on submarines, next to missile silos in North Dakota, in the reserves, and so forth.

The result is that there is a dangerous disconnect today. Those who fight and die are far removed from those who send them there. We see the result here in this congregation. Many of the generation of my parents served. Fewer in my generation did. Very few of our young people face the threat of combat. My own family is typical. My father served in WWII. I avoided serving in what I believed was an immoral war, but the issue of whether to serve or not was a vital moral issue for me. My children have never given military service a thought.

Perhaps one day there will be an initiative to create another war memorial on the National Mall in Washington, a memorial to the men and women who served and who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I suggest we build a truly fitting memorial to these men and women and to all who have served in all our wars. And while I have nothing against building memorials on the mall, I think we should build something better. I think the most fitting memorial to dead would be to render sacrifices like theirs unnecessary. We don’t need another memorial made of stone. We need a living memorial.

We need to build a lasting, durable peace. You see, peace is not something merely to wish for. It is not enough for us to love peace. It isn’t enough to hope for peace. Like a beautiful and lasting physical memorial, peace needs to be constructed. Building peace takes a lot of work.

After every war, as people mourn their dead and look at the devastation war caused, people decry war and advocate peace. “Never again,” we say. World War I was supposed to be the “war to end all wars.” Mothers Day began, not as a tribute to motherhood, but as an anti-war movement after the American Civil War by Unitarian Julia Ward Howe.

Our problem is that it is not enough to hate war and desire peace. We don’t do nearly enough to build a solid, lasting peace, and so in time we resort to war.

How shall be build a lasting peace, this fitting memorial?

I believe we begin, like all good builders, with the foundation. Enduring peace cannot exist where there is no justice. Where people are exploited, marginalized, where large numbers of people feel mistreated, there can be no lasting peace. There may be no violence right now, but violence is waiting to break out. Peace is a relationship. If we truly want peace we must work for justice.

A lasting peace requires that people have basic human rights. That means more than political rights. People must have freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of movement.

A lasting peace also needs a foundation of prosperity. Peace is not an emotional condition. People need a basic level of well being and security. When as a nation we say we want peace but do nothing to assist people out of grinding poverty, we plant the seeds of future conflict. Tremendous levels of inequality create conditions that lead to violence. Fear and desperation cannot be the foundation of peace.

With justice, human rights and basic physical and economic security as a strong foundation, we can go on to build the next level. At the next level comes the creation of communication and understanding. With ancient ethnic and religious conflicts all over the world, it will take time to build a level of mutual understanding and respect. Yet it can be done. Look at the ancient enemies of western Europe. A century ago they were divided into factions who were about to embark on two world wars. Today they share a common currency.

It takes time, but it can be done. People of good will must lead the way. We, as people who already affirm the value of all people and the wisdom in all human religious traditions, have a special role to play.

Here at JUC we have a number of ways for us to do our part. We can support the human rights work of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. We have a task force for peace and democracy as part of our Social Responsibility Council. We can help build interfaith understanding with the Interfaith Alliance. There is no shortage of opportunities to do our part.

On this Memorial Day weekend we take a moment to remember the sacrifice and service of soldiers. We do well to remember.

But remembering is not enough. Remembering is only one small step. The best way to commemorate service and sacrifice is to build a lasting peace. We do it one step at a time. We lay a foundation. We work for justice. We work for human rights. We work to lift people out of dehumanizing, desperate poverty. Building on this foundation, we work to create genuine respect and mutual understanding.

Building a monument of lasting peace won’t be done in my lifetime. It probably won’t be done in the lifetime of my children. That makes it all the more important to get busy. We need to get busy working on the foundation. The alternative is endless wars and endless Memorial Days that bring fresh memories of recent losses. We must work to end this madness.

Let us never forget the sacrifice of those who serve their country. Let us honor that sacrifice by building a living memorial of a solid, lasting peace. So may it be. Amen.