A Veterans’ Day Reflection
In December 2011, while visiting my parents in Florida, I met the father of an active duty Marine deployed in Afghanistan. Here’s a revised blog post I wrote after my encounter, now edited to reflect the intervening years:
Charles was a Lance Corporal in the United States Marine Corps. At the time his dad and I chatted in a local Starbucks, Charles had been in Afghanistan for four months and was scheduled to be deployed for another four. Rick was in the coffee shop to purchase some coffee to send to his son for Christmas.
The week prior to my conversation with Rick, Charles’ unit had been on a routine patrol, and was shredded by the explosion of an IED. One of Charles’ buddies lost both legs in the blast. Several civilians, including a young girl, nine years old, were injured as well. The little girl lost a leg and bled out as Charles held her in his arms and yelled for a medic. Charles was twenty years old at the time.
As he talked about his son, Rick carried the simultaneous expressions of “proud” and “worried” parent. He told me then, “Yes, things are winding down there, but it’s still very, very dangerous. Most folks know that truth intellectually, but I live with it every day and my son faces it every moment he’s there.”
Rick also shared with me his daily prayer for his son and the other service personnel stationed in combat zones, “I pray for their safety, and I also pray their hearts won’t become hardened by the evil that is war.” He then allowed that both prayers are tall orders. We both agreed it would be a good while before we know how the latter prayer will be answered in the lives of those who return from spending time in places most of us couldn’t locate on a map or even pronounce properly.
Back in 2011, I was aware of the invisibility of a then decade-long war. Since then, service personnel continue to serve, continue to bleed, and continue to die. Civilians are caught in the crossfire of the violence — even little children. Parents, spouses, siblings and children of our service personnel pray for the safety of their loved ones, mourn their deaths and live with the wounds (physical, mental and emotional) that come home with their loved ones after a tour of duty. I’m not really interested in the “rightness” or the “wrongness” of this particular war at this point. The prospect of winning a theoretical argument (whatever my particular political viewpoint) has little impact on the reality of what men and women are suffering — in service of this country — in real time, a half a world away.
There is an impact on this country as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That impact in terms of lives lost and lives irreparably wounded cannot be calculated. The economic repercussion of these actions is currently tabulated with so many zeros as to be essentially incomprehensible. The other cost that we’ve not talked about though, is the cost of conducting a war in which the general populace remains largely unaffected. Does waging a war become an easier option to exercise when it doesn’t affect our ability to get same day Amazon Prime delivery? How does plastering a “We Support our Troops” bumper sticker on our automobile only fuel our disengagement? Wouldn’t figuring out a way to get these men and women out of harm’s way as quickly as possible be a better way to support them?
Standing in the Starbucks with Rick, almost eight years ago, the war came home to me as a parent. My son was a pre-schooler when the war in Afghanistan began. He is now, as of November 11, 2019, twenty-two. The distancing of the general population from the horrors of war is disconcerting. I wondered back in 2011, “How have we all colluded in keeping this war hidden from ourselves?” I still wonder and worry about that question.
Yesterday morning, as I prepared to celebrate the Eucharist at Trinity Church, I announced, “This Eucharist is offered with special intention for those veterans who have served this country, and for those members of our Armed Forces throughout the world.” I then prayed this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, “Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
All day today, I’ve continued to pray that prayer. And I’ve wondered about Charles, wherever he may be. Semper Fi.
