panzade wrote:It saddens me to report that a wonderful 24 year old Marine Cpl. was buried yesterday in my town.
The valedictorian of his class he, was following in his father's footsteps to become a State Patrol officer.
What burned me up was the Florida HP spokesman saying: " The flag waves and the eagle flies thanks to the men and women that stood and fought like Ian did."
Are we that delusional? I mean what did this sacrifice for the parents have to do with keeping America free...I just don't get it.
Clearly you don't, which is hardly a crime or necessarily a flaw.
It is not difficult to understand how one might not "get it" if one focuses on the loss of a young life and the direct consequences of that death.
It would certainly seem that in the case of this young man, his death will leave a devastated family and a grieving community. We were not provided with the circumstances of his death, but unless the young man died saving innocent women and children, it's hard to imagine that we could ever obtain a consensus that his death was somehow
worthwhile.
The notion that anyone's death might be worthwhile is not a concept to be loosely advanced, and certainly not when one is considering an individual whom we know something of, or whom we love. Death is so final and devastating an outcome that we, understandably, expect a very large reward for its horrible price.
If we assume, for argument's sake, that there can be a just war, with the continued waving of the flag and flight of the eagle its clear consequences, then it is less difficult to accept the value of the deaths of young men and women, but even within that context we are faced with the task of balancing cause and effect. Not every solider in a just war dies as a classical hero - defeating greater numbers of the enemy, saving his comrades, destroying the enemy's means to wage further war. Some die in horribly ironic ways, devoid of any apparent
meaning. Does this make their sacrifice any less worthy than the
heroes'? I would argue no. The moments when we can all agree that a classically heroic deed has taken place are not what win wars, they are moments within the entire necessary process that wins the war, and all who serve that process are heroes, and no matter how they may die in the process, their deaths have served its end.
If one focuses solely on the cause and effect of an individual's death, it will be the very rare instance when one can clearly "get" its value. Even if this young man died while drinking his morning coffee, he died so that the flag may continue to wave and the eagle continue to fly...
if, one accepts that the war in which he was involved serves that end.
This, of course, is a big
If.
I respect someone's opinion that the War in Iraq doesn't serve this end. I disagree with it, but that's a subject for another posting.
However, once one accepts that the war is serving this end, it should not be so difficult to understand how a young man's death in the war can be seen as serving this end as well.
But I do know that Bush is on the record about his salvation being due to men of the cloth like Pat Robertson and Billy Graham... And Dubya is on the record believing what his gut tells him over pesky little details like facts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45277-2004Aug29.html. But Bush is on the record in 2003 stating that the sacrifices would be worthwhile. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html It does seem rather a reach to believe that Bush actually believed there would be no casualties, even if he mistakenly said such a ludicrous thing.
