A Baby Boomer's View of the Military

With the Memorial Day weekend fast approaching, I am posting a revised version of a short article I wrote for my dad's Army association newsletter, Flak, in June of 2007. I hope that if you are not already planning to attend a ceremony honoring our military dead that something in the following words may encourage or inspire you to make the effort and attend a Memorial Day weekend ceremony. If you have children or grandchildren, it will be a great opportunity to demonstrate your respect for our military. Perhaps, they will follow suit on future Memorial Days.

A Baby Boomer's View of the Military

When the editor of the Flak asked me if I--as the child of a World War II veteran--would write an article on my view of the military, I eagerly accepted his offer. Not only am I a baby boomer child of a veteran, I am also the wife of a Vietnam vet, and myself a "veteran" of the Sixties and the corrosive culture that period helped sire. Given the opportunity to share my thoughs and feelings about the military, I jumped on it.

Although I have lived in a military town, San Diego, for almost a quarter century, it did not take close proximity to endear the military to me. It has been my love of learning history and personal experience that have given me eyes to see the vital importance of the military to a nation's--or a group of nations'--survival.

Of course, as history has repeatedly shown, strikingly during the last century, the use of military force for imperialistic or malevolent reasons perverts the ethical defensive purpose of the military. However, Americans can be proud that as our nation has matured, we have generally used our military only in defense of our own freedoms or those of our allies and cannot reasonably be called imperialists.

The American military forces have been and continue to be organizations and individuals that we Americans can look to with admiration and pride. They exhibit all the attributes Americans have traditionally sought to emulate and to instill and encourage in their children: honor, integrity, discipline, duty, skill, self-sacrifice, justice, mercy, and more.

So, how do I feel about the military? I feel love, righteous pride, and gratitude for those who have served in the past, for those who serve now, and for those who will continue to step forward and serve. I also feel pain--for their wounds and youthful deaths. I feel suffering for the losses they endure and the horror they witness. I weep with the families and friends whose precious ones are gone or whose wounds are debilitating.

These losses, though, are not empty. They are heroic and life-saving. Again, as in the lives of that "Greatest Generation," we are witnessing what the courageous few are willing to do for the many: to suffer privation and intense discomfort, to risk and even lay down their lives that their fellows may live in freedom. I am reminded of the Biblical words engraved at the memorial at Utah Beach in Normandy where American soldiers stormed the Nazi fortifications in history's greatest invasion:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13 KJV)

I give thanks for the men and women of the American military, and I pray for their safe return to their families.