That said, don't you think it could reasonably be viewed as tragic if 13,000 sons, brothers and dads never returned home, just because some bigoted socialist megalomaniac and his thug buddies had managed to highjack a country that was down on its luck, take over much of a continent and menace the whole world?
That said, don't you think it could reasonably be viewed as tragic if 13,000 sons, brothers and dads never returned home, just because some bigoted socialist megalomaniac and his thug buddies had managed to highjack a country that was down on its luck, take over much of a continent and menace the whole world?
I suppose my age is catching up to me when I say, at this point in my life, no, I don't think that's a reasonable way to view it.
We are taught to strive for peace. But we are also taught that this world is not a place of peace. So being disciplined about what to grieve for is important, I think. We're all going to die, there's no escape. So ust as not dying is not a realistic goal, dying per se is not a tragic end. What matters is what one lives for, and how one dies - before God, not before anyone else.
The men who died on D-Day died fighting evil, and demonstrably helped free an entire world. Not one of them wanted to die that day. But I also believe that not one of them would have wanted to die with less meaning for why they died, and what they were doing when they died.
I can and do grieve over the fact of war. But I do the same over death by any means. The shame of war is that it is usually the result of a buildup of failed spiritual tests, usually by millions of people over decades or centuries, allowing the creation and strengthening of evil until it erupts. Who looks at moral degredation and sees eventual war as springing from it? Who looks at spiritual tests, and thinks,there's no avoiding this, if I don't get it right nw it's going to come back into my life in a worse way? Few, if any. And those who do are marginalized because they make the rest uncomfortable.
You know what I dream of? Not a world free from strife, because I don't believe that's possible. Rather I dream of a world where great heroes, like those who waded ashore 70 years ago on those beaches, are no longer needed - because the world is filled will small heroes. Heroes of daily life, who hold themselves in check, who refuse to lie to themselves, who reject evil on a small level, on a personal level, before it can grow into a bonfire, and the bonfire can grow into a conflagration that threatens the world - yet again.
If I grieve for anything, it's that we still seem so far away from such a world.