Today I honor the men and women of the United States military who have sacrificed their lives while doing their duty to the Republic. For them, and their families, I ask God to bless them and keep them.
On this Memorial Day do we remember what should not have been?
Only the West’s soul is more scarred than its landscape.
Do we still mourn the lost, do we treat the wounds, do we rub the scars with oil?
Do the children of the children lost still weep for the embraces that might have been?
Is the love lost lost to winners and losers alike?
Is there healing in the heart of humanity when tens of millions are cut down and their youth extinguished?
Many are the mysteries of human history.
Why are we so gifted in cruelty and destruction?
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…
This reflection was first published here in May 2014.
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Yes us old codgers from the Nam war do think about the fallen. Almost everyday in fact. I think about the Viets as well, not every day but we do still think about them, and wonder about them. I do not and never have hated them or their country. We drank the water, slept on the ground shivered in the monsoons. I wish them well. I did hate the centipedes and mosquitos though.
God Bless all Veterans of every war this country has fought in. Young and old & living and dead. Amen.