May 31, 2010
Vicki and I recently finished watching the HBO 10-part series “The Pacific.” It was the war with Japan companion piece to “Band of Brothers” which was about the war with Germany.
Today is Memorial Day. If you want to deepen your moments of remembering the sacrifices of others for your freedom, either of those two series will help. In both cases, the thing that struck me most was every action seemed to have the potential for dire consequences.
Life had consequences. Many things were literally impacting life and death, and not just for the soldiers, but for the families as well – not just the potential for the loss of a loved one, but the sacrifices made to support the war effort.
I truly believe we had five decades of life (1950-2000) with little or no consequence. That is, no matter what we did, we could keep going. That was most certainly not the case from 1900-1949. The Great Depression forced many decisions that impacted the rest of life. And WWI & II presented the potential for literal life and death decisions daily.
Yesterday I thought about other wars compared to WWI & II. I actually found myself asking if they are comparable. In terms of the number of Americans killed, they are not. War is a more remote thing today than it was five decades ago.
I don’t want you to think I have completely minimized the risk and suffering faced by those in the armed forces now or by others living challenged lives today. The fact is those two groups, however – in number – are very, very small. They are also, however, among the few living lives of daily consequence – making decisions that may indeed mean life or death.
I don’t need to elaborate on that context in war, but I am reminded of the state of youth gangs in the United States and the fact that gun deaths in America are dominated by shootings by one gang of members of another. I am also reminded the vast majority of those members don’t know how to read. They had lives of consequence before they joined the gang… or the military. But they were among the few.
We have had incredible prosperity in America for fifty years. But not all of us. And those who have had to live in perpetual life-and-death circumstances have more often than not come from lives far from prosperous.
As we remember our veterans today perhaps there is the potential of an expanded view. Some who join and fight do so because they choose to serve – despite the fact they had alternatives, they didn’t need to serve. They chose lives of consequence.
Others are facing consequences daily over which they have had less say or control.
I’d like to believe that those of us who have more in life should be choosing more often to take actions that have a positive consequence – to make more LIFE-and-death decisions – to choose to give up some of ours, by choice, so others who have little or no choice have more.