On the last Monday of May, our nation honors her war dead. Every generation of Americans touched by war wrestles with how to draw meaning from the loss of dear friends in combat. This task is now inescapable for those of us who served after September 11, 2001.
Since 9/11, the military suffered 7,085 combat zone fatalities, and intelligence agencies dozens more. These men and women stood on the broad shoulders of giants: New York City firefighters and police officers martyred while charging into the World Trade Center’s inferno to rescue civilians or felled by disease after searching Ground Zero for victims, whose astonishing courage they emulated in overseas service.
These Americans were volunteers in wars that many, with informed consciences, sincerely considered to be just under Thomistic principles, given the United States’ need for self-defense after attacks on our homeland. I’m confident that, in the words of the Hail Mary, the Blessed Mother prayed hard for each of these men and women in the hour of their deaths, and I suspect that the Lord was especially merciful in judging their prematurely shortened lives. Each of these Americans was precious, and no matter the nobility of their cause, they’re irreplaceable to their families.
I can only speak as one among millions who’ve deployed in the recent wars, but I think it’s appropriate that while Veterans Day for old soldiers takes place in autumn, as shadows lengthen for us, Memorial Day observances for those eternal youngsters killed in action take place in spring, a time of rebirth. Because as the annual remembrance approaches, I try to grasp the significance of what America’s war dead did by reference to our faith, and I trust that other Americans draw strength from different faiths.
St. John teaches that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) St. Paul reminds us that Jesus gave his life in remission of sins in the greatest act ever of self-sacrificial love. Christ’s unjust and violent death is inseparable from his salvific role: He dreaded it, according to St. Luke, sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, yet there could be no Easter joy without Good Friday suffering.
Consequently, we Catholics believe in a duty to remember at Mass what God did for us. We’re obliged to obey the Ten Commandments. To follow teachings such as those found in the Beatitudes; for example, to hunger and thirst for justice, to be clean-hearted and to be peacemakers. To love God wholeheartedly and our neighbors — including the less fortunate and most vulnerable — as ourselves. The evangelists also enjoined believers to spread the good news of salvation, particularly to our children.
Similarly, Americans send their children into public service because good parents taught their girls and boys love of country. To protect civilians from the evil of terrorism, sadly some of these brave daughters and sons must, in Jesus’ words and example, lovingly lay down their lives for their friends.
So, where does that leave the rest of us? Tears don’t add up to answers, but continuing the analogy to our religion, I propose that our moral duties to the war dead, and through them to our nation and countrymen, roughly resemble those which us Catholics perceive that we owe to God and to others.
We ought to remember these great Americans through reverence for the flag, Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem, which symbolize values they defended such as democracy, equality and freedom. We ought to obey laws, respect authority, build up institutions and treat others with care and dignity, recalling St. Ignatius’ injunction to presume good will in those with whom we disagree. War is ugly, but a positive memory of combat service for many veterans is a profound feeling of togetherness and responsibility for each other as fellow Americans regardless of color, class or creed.
Good citizenship alone won’t bring back sorely missed friends. But behold and like St. Paul, I’ll tell you a mystery. We shall all indeed rise again: in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, for the last trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible. Until then we can honor the fallen by loving America and other Americans as they did, advancing shared ideals for which they fought. Perhaps in so doing, together we’ll find some solace about their heartbreaking deaths.
Carroll, a parishioner of Blessed Sacrament Church in Alexandria, served in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.
Corpus Christi