When reading, I rarely remember more than one or two main points. I recently found one in the book, Reborn on the Fourth of July, that I feel compelled to document and share.
Logan Mehl-Laituri writes: ...I started getting approached by a number of other festival goers about my decision to file as a noncombatant instead of requesting discharge. But the most impressing conversation I had rarely touched on my decision. One woman didn't ask questions or poke around my beliefs. Instead, she shared urgently about someone she cared for, a Marine torn between the cross and the sword. She broke down and told me how much the church needs the message of patriotic pacifism, how much we need to articulate an alternative to the stark binarism between faith and service.
When young people get ready to face the world as emerging adults, they want to do good; they want to serve a greater purpose. The military provides a means of fulfilling those needs: by joining the military, they are "being all they can be" and become one of "the few, the proud." If they want to fight the good fight and do so in a morally captivating way, the military provides the structure through which they can sacrifice themselves, risking themselves out of loyalty to their fellow service members.
The church doesn't do this so well. When I was in youth group, I rarely if ever thought about whether or not I would die for the person sitting next to me. But in the Army, there was no question. Even in training, there was a good chance I could get hurt; if my battle buddy failed to pass his static line off properly as we jumped from an aircraft, I would suffer the consequences. On the range, we risked injury if someone failed to eject his or her excess rounds properly. The threat and the promise of service were very real, and you witnessed it every day. But in churches, it's not always clear where loyalties lie, whether someone is willing to die for (or with) you.
The woman recognized the magnetism military service has for people who want to be able to know, without much doubt, that they are doing something that works toward a better world. She knew the church had not properly prepared her loved one to express his desire to live sacrificially, that the narrative of the state had a monopoly on the language of virtue.
Today I had some extra time with a patient who was proudly displaying his Vietnam Veteran hat adorned with an Air Force pin. So we got to talking. He'd served as combat air support from '67-'68 and served an additional three years afterwards. I mentioned this book to him and said that I've found the descriptions of war from an emotional standpoint intriguing. Particularly, Logan Mehl-Leituri's expression of PTSD. The gentleman then responded by stating that his experience with PTSD has intensified in the last 5 years..."and my experience was decades ago. "I never want to go back to Vietnam" he muttered, shaking his head. He described a few of the details before the doctor came back in and then near the end of the visit our conversation returned to politics and then foreign policy (doesn't foreign policy sound nicer than war?). I made a comment about morality in war, and he responded with, "In war, there is no morality." He was emphatic and looked me straight in the eyes. I felt ill-equipped to talk about war with someone who had experienced it so intimately. "Sometimes," he said, "you have to do what is right." I wanted to ask how you could do what was right while removing the concept of morality. Instead I mentioned that if the issues were black and white we wouldn't be having this conversation and left it at that.
It reminds of me this prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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