As A Veteran and A Pastor I Must Speak Up
As a young officer in the Air Force I was assigned special duties about every 45 days or so until the time I became a Squadron Commander and was exempted from them. Most of these extra duties I have long since forgotten but 2 are forever emblazoned in my memory. My very first special duty, to inventory the Officers’ Club on Thanksgiving Day between the hours of 2am and 6am. Who could ever forget something like that! Thank goodness for the NCO I was teamed with because that meant at least 1 of us knew what he was and we were doing!
The other was to be a Mortuary Affairs officer for a day. This involved presiding over the honor guard and flag folding ceremony for two different Air Force members who died on active duty. On two different occasions that day I had the sacred, humbling honor of presenting a folded flag to a grieving widow and family. As I knelt down, now almost 50 years ago, to present each flag I said the words that I believe have probably been repeated thousands of times, “On behalf of a grateful nation and our Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United Sates of America, I present you this flag as a symbol of our deep and abiding respect for the service of….”. To be truthful, just recalling those words brings tears to my eyes. All over again I can see the heartbreak in the eyes of the widows and hear once more the sobs of the family gathered. Both times it took all the composure and will I could muster to say those words in a heartfelt, dignified way while keeping the halting, choking presence of my own tears at bay.
That is why as a veteran I am utterly outraged and disgusted by our President’s comments about fallen heroes and wounded warriors as revealed to us and confirmed multiple times by various sources and news outlets including Fox News. Of course, these words will be denied, and the spin doctors are already at work. But the simple reality is everything points to their veracity. And as a veteran I find that makes our present President unfit for office. Please do not be fooled. I am NOT making a political statement. I am making a moral statement! It matters not whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, we can ill-afford to do anything less than expect and demand of our President the basic decency of respecting all people and most certainly those who have chosen the life of serving our country, even when it means making the ultimate sacrifice.
As a pastor, I see in our President, a pathetic and small individual whose words and actions reveal he views this gift of life only in terms of what will benefit him. Sadly, he has chosen a life and values that are a contradiction and repudiation of everything our Lord teaches and values – loving one another, including enemies, serving one another, lifting one another up, being willing to sacrifice, a commitment to the forgotten, “unimportant”, rejected broken people whose lives have been lived on the wrong side of the power curve, treating one another with respect and dignity to name a few. Or in its abbreviated form: to give and love in life. And aren’t these the moments we are truly at our best and feel most connected to God!
So perhaps the question is, can our President be forgiven? The answer is Yes and No. Yes, most certainly he can be forgiven. The no, however, is rooted in the reality that to this point, by all accounts, he has never shown the slightest desire to seek forgiveness. Forgiveness is God’s gracious gift to any of us, but unless we have some awareness of our deep need for forgiveness, the gift is remains unreceived. And that is truly tragic. The only thing that is more tragic is when we offer a cheap imitation of forgiveness that tries to whitewash the offence and pretend all is okay when it is not. It is more tragic because it continues the cycle of offensive, hurtful behavior and gets in the way of healing and redemption.
So, what do I do, when as a veteran on a scale of 1-10 my anger and outrage is about a 25. Do I have a responsibility to forgive the President. No. My responsibility at this time, is to be open to God’s gift of forgiveness to cleanse my heart of the anger and outrage along with the bitterness and resentment they breed and in their place, seek to follow the way of our Lord, no matter how imperfect that may be. I can do this trusting our Lord will lead me to the place I am supposed to be with regard to all of this.
Grace and Peace, John