Most Americans deal with war simply by ignoring our troops. Lamenting the price of groceries, we forget the pain of military families. We were the first American generation to send soldiers into battle without paying a war tax.
Our troops bear more than the physical trauma for us: they bear the moral weight of war. With no luxury for easy judgments, like the Left’s “Peace now!” or the Right’s “America right or wrong,” they shoulder burdens of decision-making and psychic ambiguity unknown to civilians: burdens that wound the soul.
When is war justified? Am I defending the innocent or taking revenge? Who am I fighting for: the civilian who forgot me? The politicians whom everyone disdains? My commanding officer? My buddy beside me? Is this war really about freedom and democracy? Is anything worth killing for?
In a college distance learning program, I teach soldiers deployed to combat zones. They are as morally thoughtful as any students I’ve ever known. One wrote: “Americans regard soldiers with respect or disdain, but how does God see us? What will we say at our judgment? I took a life because someone told me to? Deep inside, I think about this so often it makes me sick.”
Whether you are liberal or conservative, please embrace our soldiers when they return. Help them heal from sorrows we can’t even imagine. The government won’t do it. You and I must care for the warrior’s wounded heart.
(Published in the Olympian, Olympia WA, Sept 21, 2011)
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