Suddenly I was aware of the little girl standing to my right, just looking at me. As Deputy Chaplain of the Ohio Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, I went to monthly staff meetings at headquarters in Columbus. I’d stop for lunch somewhere on the way back to Wilmington.
The girl’s mother came up and stood behind her. “Major,” she said, “she has an uncle in Afghanistan. She saw your uniform and wanted to thank you for your service.”
Wow!
That kind of thing didn’t happen until a quarter-century after I mustered out of the regular Air Force after my war. Not spit upon or anything … worse: Ignored.
I give thanks that folks have finally recognized that it’s not the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines (don’t forget coast guardsmen and merchant mariners, either) who are sent to fight, bleed and die, but the politicians who start wars who are to blame for the carnage and grief that particular wars bring.
It is Veterans’ Day, and to my comrades-in-arms I say, hoo-rah!, keep ‘em flying, semper-fi, fair winds and following seas, or whatever greeting your service or era deems appropriate.
It was St. Augustine who laid out the terms for a so-called “just” war. Wars of aggression or expansion, “pre-emptive” wars, are not just. Wars must be declared by a competent authority. Just wars must be for a “right” intention: Self-defense or defense of a weaker nation. Warring nations must practice principles of discrimination and non-combatant immunity.
There are Christian communities that dispute there is any justification for war – the Society of Friends (Quakers) for one. We thank them, too, for their service, as serve they did.
In any case, war – indeed any violence – is a failure of both faith and reason.
Ask a veteran.
War, or any violence, is a failure of both faith and reason. We must never forget to name it as such. It is never “noble” or “glorious” – even though service in a war may be ennobling or commendable.
God, when inspiring people to speak of the end of time, talks about a “Feast of Enemies”, where people who normally would be having at each other, sit down at a plentiful table, and because of the brilliance of the One who sits at the head table, “make nice” with each other. Read Isaiah, Jeremiah. Listen to Jesus’s “Wedding Feast” stories. Think about the Last Supper.
In the meantime, pray for those whom we ask to bear or do violence on our behalf. Thank them for their service.
Pastor Doug Campbell is retired from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and is a member of Faith, Wilmington. He retired from Peace, Hillsboro and has served interim pastorates in Cincinnati, Lebanon and Beavercreek as well as supplying pulpits in the Southern Ohio Synod, ELCA.
