We dedicate bulky portions of our dialog to ill-effects the economic situation will have upon posterity. Our duplicity in this sin is unmistakable; the future estimation of casualties, unimaginable. We are not burdening our children with debt and a skeletalized nation: We are condemning them to a lifetime of economic servitude – and worse. This is the fouled reality of matters present. Regardless of their iteration, our complaints will not release us from guilt; our complicity is, quite simply, unforgivable.
We look into that dire future as though it is the lone direction we traverse. Time is linear: For every future there is a future passed. The substance of this discourse turns the head about, forcing a scan of the recent past that we may see the completeness of the damage we have wrought….
A young man, a bugler for the North in the Civil War, died in his father’s arms. Felled by a musket blast he was barely old enough to grasp the meaning of war or its consequences. In short order the boy’s father, also wounded, was taken to a field hospital where his leg was amputated. One of them gave his life; the other was left to hobble through life. They both fought for freedom.
The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
My grandfather lies in a grave in Flanders Field. The lone remnant of his nineteen-year life is a picture of an older-looking man, dressed in uniform, gun on hip, dark caverns beneath his eyes, leaning against a ragged military vehicle. He, too, fought for freedom.
In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Upon his return from “The War” my father locked himself in a room, the disturbance of the demons he carried home more powerful than the defeated enemy he left in Europe. He spent four years of his youth moving back and forth across enemy lines, pretending to be Italian then German. On a fateful day he killed an enemy. A man he beguiled. This is war. He stripped the body of a wallet – A wallet holding the picture of the man’s seven children and wife. Near war’s end dad would be targeted for extinction - Beguiled. The bullet moved through dad’s body, stopping at the edge of his spine. Dad’s demons plagued him, tore at his soul. At times the distance between his reality and the world forced him into a self-imposed prison of loneliness and sorrow. We were not allowed to make that journey with him. Dad, too, fought for freedom.
‘As of ourselves or those whom we
For years have loved, and will again
Tomorrow maybe love; but now it is the rain
Possesses us entirely.'
Keith Douglas said, grimly,
'To be sentimental or emotional now is dangerous to oneself and others'.
War kills more than bodies.
At the moment of my grandfather’s death in France my mother, living in Chicago, became an orphan. The poverty of her life became the poverty of our lives. My father’s wounds were mortal to us all. “War kills more than bodies.”
Yet, not a single member of my family would then have resisted his duty to serve his nation or remain faithful to the quiet compacts he made with human dignity, courage and self-sacrifice. My mother’s sacrifices – a father and a husband – are an unfair, unbearable burden for any human being; mom’s wounds were deep. So, too, was her stoic courage. When she cried, when she wept, her tears were for losses too large; not one of those tears was a selfish nod to the heavens for life’s injustices or pity.
“My God, what have you done to my nation?”
I fear that moment when I am tossed into the firmament to bear the burdens of my sins; when the souls of my forbearers, the men who fought for freedom, greet me. Will they know I failed my duty to them? Will they know I broke faith with them; that my lack of resolve obliged them to die in vain?
I am sickened even by the thought that many of us will escape the liability of the burdens we leave to posterity. Of all generations this nation has nurtured, ours may rightly be characterized the ‘freeloader generation’; a generation of ‘almost heroes’. History will likely record these times ‘the age of hypocrisy’; the time to follow, ‘the age of consequences’. Yes, that is our gift to posterity: Consequences.
· That we allow fellow citizens to draft sustenance from the government’s coffers is an act of human decency; that we allow dependent citizens to draft unearned sustenance is sin.
· That we allow the constitution to be a pliable doctrine is admirable; that we allow it to become a weapon against freedom is despicable.
· That we were occasionally remiss in our duty to one another is understandable; that we became strangers to one another is accursed.
· That we allowed the government to freely act is trust; that we allowed the government to act against freedom is foolishness.
· That we show mercy to evil men is kindness; that we allow men to do evil is cowardice.
· That we sought sustenance is human; that we expected sustenance is selfish.
· That we allow sinners to live among us is civil; that we nurture incivility is sin.
· That we honor God is faith; that we dishonor the faithful is evil.
· That we urge independence is strength; that we nurture dependency is weakness.
· That we stand is a miracle; that we stand for nothing is shame.
When the consequences of these times swell to fruition, I hope, no, I pray, my mortal body will be fit to raise full objections for the contempt I hold for those fouled matters I have thus far ignored. When the moment comes for resolution, I will push my children behind me – They will not endure the burden that is mine to suffer.
Am I alone in my contempt? I think not. I am certain, quite certain, that moments after my death my family’s courageous souls will greet me with piteous stares, the burdens they bore on my behalf etched in their faces. They will scan my soul with piteous sorrow: “My God, what have you done to our nation?” They will ask.
Then, perhaps, I will beg my return to terra firma that I may faithfully grasp the sins of my son’s father.
