The Pain of War - Any War

Our regional PBS station was running a number of episodes of the classic Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War this past Sunday. It is a mesmerizing show from beginning to end. The use of still photographs, talking head historians, letters from soldiers, and a remarkable narration draw you in to this defining moment in our nation's history. As someone said it is the time when the phrase United States went from plural to singular.

And, as every time I see war stories - fictional or other - I was struck by the incredible ultimate disaster of war. As the camera panned the endless pictures of endless casualties I found myself overwhelmed by its devastation. As I heard Lincoln's words that he needed a general who could ignore the arithmetic of death and casualties and do it anyway. I thought then of Eisenhower the day before D-Day. If he thought of the 10,000 Allied casualties that lay ahead, he probably couldn't have done it.

In the Civil War as many as 110,000 Union and 94,000 Confederate troops died in battle. That's 204,000. Another 410,000 died of disease. That doesn't include the hurt and maimed who never got their lives back.

There are 58,000+ names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

Yet I knew as I sat there that war may be an evil that we may have to live and die with. It may be one the ultimate examples of what Christianity has come to call "original sin." It is a sad and hopeless feeling for a pacifist like myself to ponder. Very little if anything humanity has done has been able to stop war. We may often fall into it against our will or at the narrow shortsightedness of our leaders. Or there may seem to be a reason that we have to. No wonder Augustine and later Aquinas saw the need for a "just war theory."

But even in "just wars" people die, property is destroyed, lives are changed forever and nations find themselves doing things that go against the very grain of their values.

Even more so are those who are called to fight. They see and may do things they want to forget. They are hurt; they die; they are irrevocably changed. We must not push them away as damaged people. We must not ignore their needs- or their sacrifice.

While working on this I went to the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall page. It is a sobering place when you click on the links on the left for today's Wall Birthdays or today's Wall Casualties.

Ultimately no war is truly just. All wars bring death and destruction- external and internal. We are only now moving away from the destruction of the Vietnam War on our nation. We are working hard at keeping that from happening with the Iraq War but stories of suicides, Traumatic Brain Injuries and PTSD tell us that we will live with the results for a generation.

Yes, the Civil War kept our Union and ended slavery. Yes, World War II ended the Nazis and Japanese aggressions. Amen. The cost and sacrifices were real and great. But that doesn't make war good and pleasant.

May that never happen. We will have lost all of our humanity at that point.

So pray for peace and embrace the returning veterans of all wars that their pain may be eased in whatever ways we are able to do that.