Some Thoughts on Our Nation's 250th Anniversary and the Cost of Freedom

Since graduating college many years ago, I have written extensively on the Catholic faith and military history.  I currently have two books about World War Two in print, and another World War Two book under consideration for publication. 

 
My interest in military history is both professional and personal.  I am part of a family with a long tradition of military service dating back to the U.S. Civil War.  I served two deployments to Iraq as a Navy Religious Program Specialist.   Serving with Marine Corps aviation units, my Iraq experience was very, very different than the experiences of my brothers and sisters in uniform who served with ground forces.  

 
When I reflect upon our nation’s 250th birthday and what it took to win our independence and defend our freedom afterwards, I have mixed feelings.  I am grateful to those who served and continue to serve, and I am saddened at the high costs of winning and defending our freedom.  I am grateful to God for the freedom that we enjoy today and to those who defend it whenever and wherever it is threatened.

 
In its history, our nation has asked, even required, a lot from the men and women who fight to defend our nation.  Our nation has asked and continues to ask young men and women to leave their homes and families and put their lives at risk with the very real possibility that they will not return home alive or that they may return home with lifelong physical, mental, spiritual and emotional injuries.  I know firsthand what it is like to leave your family at the airport on your way to war not knowing for certain if you will see them again in this life. For over 250 years, American men and women have been doing just that...and not everyone makes it back home.

 
Wars are fought predominantly by those in their late teens and twenties.  Our nation asks these young men and women, barely out of high school or college, to undertake the most dangerous and difficult tasks imaginable.  Our nation asks these young people to make life and death decisions on a daily basis when they are still trying to figure out who they are and what their own lives are all about. 

While many young people are deciding what kind of car to buy, other young people in uniform are having to decide if a car approaching their checkpoint is full of explosives and is being driven by someone hell-bent on killing them.  While many young people are trying to decide if they should get married, other young people in uniform are wondering if they will live long enough to get married.  

 
During war, our nation places tremendous responsibility in young people.  A 19-year-old squad leader is responsible for the lives of eleven others.  A 25-year-old company commander is responsible for the lives of 180 others.  Our nation trains them and equips them and tries to prepare them for complex situations that change minute by minute and can produce disastrous results even when they do everything right. Our nation provides them with multi-million dollar pieces of weaponry and then trusts them to use them properly and not make mistakes which could kill innocent lives and cause global ramifications.

 
I was in my thirties when I deployed to Iraq. I had life experiences to supplement my training.  Most of the Marines and Sailors in my units were ten or more years younger than me.  They were not long out of high school or college or were still attending college.  They rose to the challenge even as they struggled with their own personal difficulties.  Though a service member may be half a world away, problems from back home invariably find their way into a combat zone.  And that is a major reason why chaplains are so essential for deployed service members.  My chaplain and I assisted service members with deaths of loved ones back home, pregnancy complications for wives back home, marital infidelity back home, serious medical conditions of loved ones back home, and a host of other difficulties that stretched across the globe to affect our Marines and Sailors in theater.  

 
I have been studying and writing about war for most of my life not because I love war and revel in its death and destruction.  I study and write about war because if someone is willing to sacrifice for our country then we as a nation and as individuals owe it to them to appreciate and remember what they have done, especially if he or she paid for our freedom with his or her own life or limb or well-being.  My second book Dive Bomber Down:  James A. Nist, Naval Aviator in the Pacific War is dedicated to my grandmother's youngest brother who was killed flying a combat mission in the Pacific in 1945.

 
In Jesus’s most Holy Name, I pray for the day prophesied by Isaiah and Micah (Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3) when all peoples will beat their swords into plough shares and spears into pruning hooks.  I pray for the day when nations will no longer raise swords against each other nor train for war.  Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.  Agnes Dei quitollis peccata mundi: dona nobis pacem.

 
As we celebrate our nation’s 250th Anniversary of our Independence, please take a moment and remember those who paid for our freedom.  Please say a prayer for them and for their loved ones.  Please pray for those who lost their lives and for those who suffered physical and psychological wounds that will affect them for the rest of their lives.  Please pray for those wives who lost husbands, children who lost mothers and fathers, parents who lost sons and daughters so that we can be free.   Please pray that our merciful Father in Heaven will hasten the day when we no longer have to send our best men and women into harm’s way for our freedom.