Memorial Day – A Reflection

Memorial Day has always been a complicated “holiday” for me. It has become even more complicated the further I get from wearing the uniform of a USAF Chaplain, Lt Col. (This blog isn’t about me and my rank or my military service… as Veterans for Peace, an organization that I belong to says, “if you want to thank me for my service, work for peace.”)

This blog is a combination of looking back, looking to today, and looking to tomorrow. When I first put on the uniform in 1985, I had no idea what I was getting into. The last few years of my service the number of military members I either knew and buried, or knew and mourned increased dramatically. I guess the older I get and the more that I experience, the more the reality of life and death became more real.

It wasn’t the Hollywood War movies, rather it was the ugly reality of war and death. A friend of mine and fellow chaplain emailed me from the Baghdad Airport Casualty Collection Point in the opening days of the invasion of Iraq and said, “Mike, this shit is real and they are trying to kill us!” However, we were doing the same thing to the people of Iraq.

This weekend I have been reading the works of Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, and Martin Luther King, Jr. These prophets from the 1960’s and in the case of Fr Berrigan up until his death in 2016, speak to me of a world that was mad and continues to me mad. As Dr King said in his sermon at New York’s Riverside Church in 1967:

When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence

I was a part of the military industrial complex. I am not proud of that. However, I was able to speak to a different way of viewing life and the value of people’s lives while I was in uniform. I spoke to the fact that people are more important than implements of war. As Thomas Merton said in No Man Is an Island, The God of peace is never glorified by human violence.

Something happened today on our drive to the Pensacola Airport today. The traffic was pretty heavy and rough. However, it was when someone behind us began laying on their horn while traffic was at a standstill that things changed. When he jumped out of his truck to yell at a driver in front of us, I went into full-on military defensive driving mode.

We made our way through that ugly situation but it took a while for our blood pressure to drop. Seriously? On a weekend that is supposed to honor and remember those who died as a result of our nations wars, someone is going ballistic? Dr King’s words speak to me once again of the futility of this situation. We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation… And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace.

Tomorrow I will remember those who died… who died in the wars of this nation. I will also strive to be a voice for peace. In 1968, Daniel Berrigan prayed as the Cantonsville Nine burned draft records to protest the war in Vietnam. May God make it possible through this action for others to live. May he make it more difficult for them to kill one another. We make our prayer in the name of that God whose name is peace and decency and unity and love. Celebrant’s Flame: Daniel Berrigan in Memory and Reflection (p. 46)

His words speak volumes today as a this nation and world continue to see violence as the only answer. My prayer is that we will make a way through this world of hatred, fear, and violence. In the words of St Francis of Assisi, Lord make us an instrument of your peace.