memorial day reflection

today is memorial day, a nationally recognized day for remembering the people of our armed forces. if i am completely honest with myself, this is a confusing time for me. i come from a family with a continued participation in the armed services. my father was in the army, older brother was in the marines & participated in the gulf war (though i like to joke the ship he was on got hit by a sea mine and then docked for the duration of the war and he basically played beach volleyball in kuwait. this my understanding from his pictures atleast.) my younger brother, as many of you know, is in the national guard with one tour through iraq and a possible second within the next year. me, i never felt myself called into the armed services. the closest i got to armed service work was working as a security guard on a land based navy testing site. with our family tradition i do hold those who have sacrificed and given their lives to the calling of our country. i live much of the life i do due to their sacrifice through history.

in the same breath though, i find myself conflicted by my understandings of Christ's model for our lives to live and be in an alternative type of sacrifice & giving. maybe though, this is the tension of being church & being american, which i will live with.

two stories...

the vietnam vet memorial is the lasting image in my understanding when it comes to war. why? mostly because it was created during my younger childhood. second, because when we lived in new jersey we would take friends & family on trips to washington on a regular basis & this was the only memorial created at that particular time.

one time i remember walking with my dad (now my dad was in-between wars when he served in the army, a few years before vietnam). we walked slowly looking at names. then dad stopped and started to etch a shaded name onto a piece of paper.  "what are you doing?" i ask "i went to school with this guy." he proceeded to tell me some stories about him & what he knew of his death in the war. he sent the etching to this young persons father, giving as a gift but also to say, "i remember your son." we talked about this some years later. my dad received a letter back from this man's father expressing thanks for the etching (though he already had one) but mostly for remember his son. i really think that it is only when people cease from being remembered that they truly are dead.

in more a more lighthearted story, from the category of "just wrong." my brother & i had taken my cousin clare who was visiting from the uk to washington. we were walking around the sites and were walking from the lincoln memorial over the vietnam memorial. at one of the entrances there is a statue of some soldiers. well at that particular moment in time was an elderly man dressed in his uniform. he was doing some marching drill and then saluting the statue. people were all circled around him taking pictures. as we took in the scene my brother leans over and whispers in my ear... "i out rank him, should i make him do some push ups?" to this we laughed and walked down through the memorial

Comments

[Shawn]

Was a good trip to DC. I remember that older veteran in his uniform. Yes, I mentioned the saluting but, boy I could have cried. He still fit into his old uniform and boy it was pressed and in good shape. I have never seen a Private with such a good looking uniform. Of course I have never seen a 70 year old Private in full dress uniform either. He had all my respect and more.

For all my living and deceased brother and sister veterans, Thank You for your service.

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
--JOHN F. KENNEDY, INAUGURAL ADDRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 20, 1961

[Art]

Nice post for Memorial Day, Gavin. Good stories...

[Andrew C. Thompson]

I really appreciated this post, Gavin. I think our thinking about our Christian identity is hardest at those places where Christ and the world make competing commitments on us. Surely the use of violence is chief among those.

You mentioned on my blog a few days back that Yoder was on your reading list for the summer. I am finding that he addresses questions I have always had about the use of violence, as well as posing questions I never would have thought of asking. If you are looking for any Yoder texts that specifically deal with Christian non-violence, I suggest starting with "The Original Revolution" and "He Came Preaching Peace." Both are excellent.