No One Dies in Vain: A Memorial Day Meditation
Sermon by Steve Edington
May 27, 2007
You've heard me, over the years, offer a number of stories about my childhood summers spent on my grandfather's small southern Ohio farm. I've got another one for today. I must have been around 10 years old, and one afternoon I got to rummaging around in a big storage trunk that was kept in an out building a little ways from the main house. While poking through old letters, old photographs, old Bibles, and other such things I found what looked like a little coupon book. Most of the coupons had been torn out, but a few remained. Being an inquisitive type I took it down to the house and asked my Aunt what it was. She told me it was a ration book. My next question, of course, was, "What's a ration book?" My Aunt explained that during the War - the Second World War, which at the time was only some ten years distant - certain types of food were scarce in grocery stores, and you had to show a coupon from your ration book if you wanted to purchase a particular food item at certain times. That struck me as a little odd since even at my young age I still knew that you could buy whatever you wanted from a grocery store if you had the money. But my question was answered; so I put the ration book back in the trunk, put the trunk back where it belonged, and went back to playing.
I thought of that incident just a couple of years ago when I was interviewing a gentleman for an article I was writing. The man's name is Al Hinkle and he's the prototype for one of the characters in Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Part of our interview was about Al's early years in Denver, Colorado. In that part of our conversation he recounted coming back to Denver after doing a hitch in the United States Merchant Marine during the Second World War. He had no family to support at the time, and was able to buy his first car with the money he'd made in the service. But, as Al told it, "Rubber was scarce due to the War, so I put my car up on blocks and rode the bus until the War was over." He said this in a very matter of fact way, implying that it was not such an unusual practice at the time.
Let's grant the obvious before going any further: Dealing with a limited level of food rationing, or taking the public transit instead of driving your own car for a couple of years, are pretty small potatoes when it comes to war-time sacrifices; small, that is, compared to being on the front lines of a battlefield getting shot at and possibly killed.
But these two incidents just cited, and numerous others like them, at least provided some sense of continuity or connection between what was happening at home here in America and what was happening on the battlegrounds of Europe and the Pacific. The idea was that we're all in this thing together. If this indeed is a war worth fighting, then we all need to be giving up something in support of it.
There was also sense that, even with all the horrors of warfare, there was a greater good at stake, for which we should all be willing to give up at least a little something. Every sacrifice - great or small - was seen as contributing to the greater good of the defeat of unchecked fascism.
We've sent soldiers off to several other wars since then, and those subsequent wars have had mixed support from the American people - greater support for some and less support for others when it comes to the rationales offered for them. Some of the soldiers who fought in them went as conscripts; some were, and are, volunteers. But each of these soldiers was, and is, called upon to make the same kinds of sacrifices, as did those who went off to World War II. For some their sacrifices have been the ultimate ones of their lives. What do we say about these lives - whatever our feelings and opinions may be about the wars they fought in - on this Memorial Day that was originally set aside to honor war dead following the Civil War? What do we especially say now with a New York Times poll that was released this past Friday reveals that over 60% of Americans now believe we should have never invaded Iraq. Opposition to the Iraqi War is no longer a minority position.
And yet, there are still lives, human lives - of young, mostly, men and women - that have been lost over the past four years that must be honored. There are also lives that have been dramatically altered, and the courses of lives have been dramatically reshaped, by both physical and psychological wounding that warrant our ongoing care. None can be ignored. They went to war with the same commitment and dedication as did my father and uncle over 60 years ago.
In thinking on all this I find myself haunted by a poem that was written, also over sixty years ago, at the conclusion of the Second World War. It's by the poet and playwright Archibald MacLeish who would later achieve Broadway fame and acclaim for his play JB. During World War II MacLeish had been serving as the Librarian of Congress. When the War ended the Library of Congress staff wanted to hold a Memorial Service for its staff members who had gone off to fight and had not returned. MacLeish, whose identity as a writer, poet, and man of letters were already been well established, was asked to write it. He was in his early fifties at that point and had been an artillery officer in the First World War; so he knew about war and combat and battlefield deaths. He was not, that is to say, writing from an academic ivory tower. The poem MacLeish wrote was called The Young Dead Soldiers. These are some of its lines:
We were young. We have died. Remember us. We have given our lives, but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave. Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them. Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing, we cannot say; it is you who must say this. We leave you to our deaths. Give them meaning. We were young. We have died. Remember us
What makes this poem so striking for me - in addition to its powerful words - is its context. It was written in the wake of a war for which there was probably a greater degree of unity and support across this nation than for any other war we'd ever fought before or since. And it was one in which, given the examples I've already cited, the American people across the country felt some level of personal participation themselves. And yet this poet still wrote, taking the voice of those who had died: "Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this."
Curious words indeed. In many ways the meaning of the battlefield deaths of World War II were apparent. As already noted, father and one of my uncles served in that conflict. Both of them, fortunately, came home alive and unscathed and lived out their lives - raising their families and pursuing their jobs and careers. I remain proud to this day for what they did for their, and for my, country. They knew why they went and they knew what their service had meant when they came home. They knew what those who had not come home had died for. The rise of fascism in Europe - beginning in Germany - presented not just a threat to the United States but to many of the world's peoples. And as the assembly line deaths of the concentration camps, and the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people in Europe became exposed, it became clear that we were dealing with someone who would stop at absolutely nothing in his perverted quest for a master race. And Hitler, most importantly, had the military means to pursue that twisted vision. Even in the face of all that MacLeish still wrote the lines "Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say..."
One of the marks of a good piece of poetry is that it takes you inside yourself - and makes you think and probe and do some soul searching. That's how I'm treating this poem of MacLeish's. I think (think) he was trying to go from the particular to the universal, which is also what good poetry does. He was raising a question that must be raised at the conclusion, and even during the course of, any war: Are its deaths for peace and a new hope or for nothing?
With this in mind, what then do we say of the American lives lost over these past four and more years in Iraq? They were lives that were just as precious and beloved as those that were lost over six decades ago - and as precious and beloved as those lost in subsequent wars. They were sent, in this case, to make war on a country that was ruled by someone whose heart and mind and deeds may well have been as hideous as those of Hitler's; but who, despite all we were told by those who took us into this war, did not post the threat to this country and to the world in the way that Adolph Hitler did. The war now continues to be waged by those who took us into it, or by those who have succeeded them in office, even as the majority of Americans have now come to recognize it's folly and who want it ended forthwith.
Knowing that, however, it is still imperative that we honor the lives of our fellow citizens that have been lost over the past four years - over 3400 of them now. Even if this war is, as I believe it to be, folly, their lives clearly were not. Their lives mattered deeply - deeply to those who loved them, to those who knew them as sons or daughters or fathers or mothers or husbands or wives or loved ones. No one dies in vain I feel. Any life that touches and blesses other lives is one that is not lost in vain, or for no reason, whatever the circumstances of the death may be. These lives must be honored. For this reason I will join, for a time tomorrow, with those up on Library Hill to read the names of the fallen Americans in this war.
But what should these lives mean to us to those of us who have no personal ties to them? What should they mean for those of us who may not know the person behind the name? Recall MacLeish's words again, "Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them." These soldiers were sent to fight in our name, whether or not we approved of the reasons - or even believed the reasons - that were given for their being sent.
MacLeish wrote that lives and deaths may be given for what he called "a new hope." This is what I find myself looking for now. I look for it beyond the frustration and the anger I feel as I see this war continue. What is the "new hope" that might be found? Is there even such a thing? I want to believe there is. I continue to believe in the existence of hope that lies beyond even the deepest despair. My hope is that the memory of those precious lives that have been lost will remain etched in our minds and hearts, and in the minds and hearts of generations to come, when the temptations and inclinations and urges of war present themselves again - even as they do to this day.
One of the tragic paradoxes of living is that we sometimes have to pass through the demonic in order to see and recognize all that is sacred and holy. Those whose names will be read tomorrow have been taken by the demons of war. In the wake of their passing I hope we can renew and recommit ourselves to upholding all that is sacred and holy in life; and rededicate ourselves to the preservation of all life. If these deaths can call us to that kind of renewed commitment, as I feel they can, they have not been lost in vain at all.
One more note along this line: If we believe in the existence of such a thing as the human family, as I do, then the names of each of those lost in this war represent a death in the family. So do the names of the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives either at the hands of combatants, or in the horribly convoluted and horribly multi-tiered civil war that has erupted in the wake of our invasion and that refuses to diminish, surge or no surge. These Iraqi civilians, caught in war's maelstrom, are family as well. We also honor their lives. And in so doing we call upon ourselves to be bearers of life - even in the face of the many deaths that confront us.
I have one more line in MacLeish's poem that I want to return to as a way of bringing these thoughts to a close. For me it's the most intriguing one of all: "We have given our lives, but until it is finished, no one can know what our lives gave."
"Until it is finished..." Remember he wrote this when the war was over. So what was it, and is it, that is not finished? Never having had the chance to ask Mr. MacLeish about this I'll have to venture my own guess. Maybe what's not finished is the cessation of war itself. How many wars to end all wars have been fought in human history after all? Maybe what's not finished is the healing of the broken parts of ourselves; or the broken parts of our collective selves as a human race that still keep us from finding non-violent solutions to our human conflicts.
What is still not finished is the full realization of our sixth Unitarian Universalist Principles that calls upon us to promote: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all."
I think those who framed that Principle were wise to use the word goal. To set a goal means that something has not yet been achieved. Stating it this way takes this Principle out of the realm of pie in the sky and makes it a human challenge. Our challenge and our calling are to work towards the goal of world community, for this is what remains unfinished.
The night before he was killed Martin Luther King told a gathering in Memphis, Tennessee, after making reference to a "Promised Land" of racial justice and a non-violent world, that "I may not get there with you." Indeed he did not. Less than 24 hours after he spoke those words he was dead. And we are still not there. We have still not arrived at that Promised Land of which Dr. King spoke.
For this reason the journey to such a Promised Land is a journey of faith; because we're most likely not going to get completely there ourselves either. But we still must travel towards it. And part of our traveling calls for the honoring of lives. We must honor the lives given and the lives sacrificed. They have been given precisely because we have not yet completed that journey, or reached our goal, of a peaceful, sane, and reconciled world.
"Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them." What we must make of them and what we must take from them is a renewed call and a renewed commitment in our lives to plant the seeds - just plant the seeds - of peace and love and justice in the hope that someday they will come to full flower, whether any of us live to see that day or not.
For lives lost in this and in previous wars, may they rest in peace. For those of us who are still granted the gift of life, may we be bearers of peace.
Rev. Stephen D. Edington
May 27, 2007
