An additional conclusion can be made that we are on the verge of becoming blind to service members and veterans; that we have forgotten about them, and therefore no longer care about them. Even in the recent presidential debates, aside from the argument over who would cut or fund "defense spending" to include a moderately interesting comment about Navy ships and "horses and bayonets," we hardly heard any mention of the military. We heard even less about the fact that every day our service-members continue to be engaged in armed conflict in Afghanistan.
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Why bring out these hard statistics, you may ask? Can't you just leave well enough alone and let this tragic war fade into the rearview mirror of historic obscurity? Let me answer my own questions. I am a person of faith and a Christian. In my opinion, one of the most influential sayings of Jesus in the Christian Scriptures is this one: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15.12, NRSV).
If people of faith are going to engage in God's mission of healing, forgiving and restoring, we have to know the facts. If we are serious about healing, we will soon find ourselves chest deep in repentance and penance. The service members and veterans are the unseen citizens who have been going to war, OUR WAR, for more than 10 years. I recognize that many of us have little or no sympathy with the war.
However, that does not absolve us of the need to care for these citizens who are our children, neighbors, sisters and brothers. How will we love those who have been willing to lay down their lives for us? Do we care enough about service members and about veterans to help them? Though there are some technical and organizational fixes to the solution for helping service members and veterans that may not be the fix for God's people. God calls us to more than a simple fix. The first principle is, I believe, to take seriously Jesus' mandate of love.
Bishop James Magness: Veterans Day: Healing the Wounds of Those Who've Served Us -- A Spiritual Perspective
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