Op/Ed-some random thoughts about war and remembrence.

Perhaps my argument here is non sequiter.You be the judge.But forgive my rambling.I don't always think in a perfectly straight line.That's especially true when it comes to remembering our veterans.

When I was young,there were still living veterans from both world wars.Those from the first war were very old men for the most part,at least in their sixties or seventies.The Second World War had ended only fifteen years before I was born,so there were plenty of relatively young men around with fresh,or should I perhaps say,raw memories of what that time and experience was like.Even as a young child I had the sense that many of these people,and everyone,absolutely everyone knew some of these people,were deeply haunted by the living out of that part of their lives.Many would not,could not talk of what happened on those battlefields.You see,to a young boy war seems glamorous,especially when you are still living in the shadow of it,and he wants to hear those stories and find glory in them.The same glory we used to see in all those John Wayne films.But such a thing,if it ever existed could not be found in any of the veterans that I knew.You see,their stories were real,and whats real is not so easy to talk about.

Just a few short years ago I had the privilege of getting to know on of Canada's veterans rather well.We came from the same part of the country,you see,and we shared a love of traditional music,which is how we came to meet.There were things that we did not agree about,specifically political things,but in the end we got along famously and I've always considered this man to be a mentor.And,he told me a story about his time in the war that I will never forget.

It was a terrible time he said,a bad time for everyone.He was a young man when he signed up and after a few short weeks he was sent to Normandy.His account,at least when he gave it to me said nothing of bombs exploding or low flying planes or bullets passing close.No talk of guns or smoke or tanks.It's as if those things were all absent.But what he did tell me revealed so much about what that time was like,and even more about how it is we should think about war.

"Once I was there for some time,I got a letter from my mother.It told me how my brother was killed in Italy.Then I got angry,with an anger I'd never had in my life.I knew I was there and I knew why.I had no doubt I was doing the right thing,and I understand why it was the right thing.It wasn't just because my country was telling me it was the right thing.So I was there and I had a gun and I was trying to kill men who were trying to kill me.Then that letter came,and it made me angry."And he paused for a long time.A long time."Then,I fired that gun for my brother.And I know I killed people.Before that,I was firing my gun,but I wasn't certain I was killing anyone...war is like that.But then,I know I killed people,once my brother was gone and I started fighting for him.What I don't know though,about those people I killed is,I don't know what happened to their soul."And that was his story as he told it to me.After some time he absorbed some shrapnel and his fighting ended.But not has war.He always wondered,he said, why God had taken his brother and left him.And he wondered forever about the condition of some nameless German souls.

What does his story tell us today?The old cliche that "war is hell"is no less true for it's having been said so often,for one thing.There was no real glory in war for this man and it's ghosts followed him until he drew his last breath.The only glory was that this man went and did his duty with a good idea as to the moral necessity of doing that duty.He believed in the right of what he was doing,at least in he beginning.And if he was not so convinced later in life,he came home with the fine and moral and unselfish idea that the souls of those slaughtered mattered,no matter what side of the battlefield they fell on.

I was honored to know this man.His story was so unlike that of what I though a war story should be,and yet so revealing.But my deep concern is with younger people today,who will never have the opportunity to know such a man.I don't know what war really means to them,what they think they are doing when they remember and when they wear the poppy.Some of them come from military families,of course,and some of them were taught well to remember.Some,as well will have friends who have known war in some far off country.But it's really not the same as living in that once long shadow.

War must have another purpose.Not that I prefer war to it's opposite,but when I see the world I'm living in today,it makes me wonder if,the more distant we get in time from those times which we say we remember each November 11,the more uncivil we become to each other.To be fair,there are many differences in our world today.It is such a different place.But it is hard to deny that we are.by comparison to fifty years ago lacking civility.

Today we are surrounded by social media,and I think we have to ask how that affects us as a society.Over the last few days I've posted many things about this season of remembrance on my facebook page.But,it's not the same as visiting a veterans memorial and having the cold and snow to remind me just what the sacrifice of those people really was.The internet is,to a large extent anonymous,or at least distant from the way we used to engage our world.It is argued by some that this makes things like cyber bullying and stalking more likely,and a sense of not caring about others and an attendant narcissism more the social norm.My question is,though,what does this have to do with war?

Today war is fought by professional soldiers,and I thank God for them.At least in this country,no one is called to serve that has not chosen to do so.We recently sent troops to Afghanistan,and some were lost.But that sacrifice was made by those who were being paid to do a job.It's not near the same as the World Wars,when our entire country,both military people,and those at home sacrificed to triumph in a perhaps not noble,but a necessary cause.My point then is that we were all in it together,and we knew it.We had some idea of the desperation in that struggle,and how very much our world would be different if we did not see it through to victory,at whatever cost required.And our world could very easily been defeated.It was so close.

Nearly all those brave men and women have passed now,and I fear that we live in a world that knows so little of sacrifice.Sure,some of us sacrifice for our children,or our career,or some such thing.But o any of us really know the sacrifice to preserve our whole way of life?Consequently,is the value of that way of life ever really apparent to us,especially as we get farther away in time from those terrible years.There seems no sense of striving together these days.And perhaps that is the whole higher purpose of war.By default do we become more selfish and less caring,thus bringing our world to a state that our enemies failed to do?Is that the danger of not remembering?I fear it may be,and that is why I say,"LEST WE FORGET"

We would do well to remember that civility,even towards those who do not share our worldview,is about concerning ourselves with the souls of others and knowing that there is dignity attached to each of hose souls.

A Musical Tribute To Our Military Men And Women,Past and Present.

lest we forget

Canadian soldier-killed in Afghanistan

black troops in WWII-these men fought for the freedom of a country in which they could not even eat at the same table as their white counterparts-LEST WE FORGET.

Suvla Bay.

BLOOD BOUGHT MY FREEDOM!

IN MEMORY OFF ALL THOSE WHO SERVED OUR COUNTRY AND NEVER RETURNED.WITH DEEPEST RESPECT TO THOSE CURRENTLY SERVING IN OUR MILITARY,AND THEIR FAMLIES HERE AT HOME WHO SHARE IN THEIR SACRIFICE SO THAT OUR COUNTRY MIGHT REMAIN FREE.LEST WE FORGET!

op/ed-not an ordinary theft.

Some things never seem to change much.Before I spent three years living in the east,there were a disturbing series of thefts here in the Calgary area.It seems someone,or perhaps more than one someone,as disturbing as that is to believe,is targeting poppy boxes and the seemingly small amount of change that they collect on the behalf of needy war veterans.This is my first Rememberance Day back in this fine city,and,guess who else is back.Right,the poppy thief.

Sometimes I think Calgary is the meanest city on earth.Lets see if I've got this righgt.Three years ago there was a theft of cash from a poppy box at a certain North Hill restaurant.A waiter chases the thief down,but what do you know,he turns out to be a down on his luck,destitute street person.So of course,the restaurant manager does the right thing and simply allows that individual to keep the stolen money.Makes perfect sense to me.If you want the wolves at the door,just keep putting meat on your front lawn.No wonder the thief is back this year,to the very same restaurant.However well intentioned this restaurants manager may have been,he is simply misguided in a very simple way.A homeless,destitute person?Excuse me!It seems that certain other people don't get it,so let me explain.This homeless destitute person is somehow neither able or willing to obtain the services that are available in this community to his kind?And,of course,he is far more deserving than the veterans who also need the assistance provided by poppy fund donations.

There is a certain,unpopular,admittedly politically incorrect way of discribing those who would rob poppy boxes.The problem here is not homelessness.It's being morally challanged,being destitute of the most rudimentary ethics,of having not one grain of respect for veterans or the society that you live in.This person is not some cute,unfortunate homeless person.He is a predator.

It's a complete shame that theft from poppy boxes cannot be dealt with in the manner that it deserves.This is no ordinary act of theft.It is a complete act of moral indecency.Sadly,the penalty for theft is written into law,and can't be stiffened over a mere matter of disrespect.We could,though at least call the prosecutors office en masse to demand that the thief,if caught,be tried by indictment,as opposed to by summary conviction.Indictment is always at the prosecutors discretion and carries somewhat stiffer penalties,though the move would be largely symbolic.But sadly,there is fat chance of that ever happening in a province that can't even bring rapists to justice fast enough to prevent them from beating their charges.

All of this leaves me with one single question.IS THIS WHAT OUR VETERANS FOUGHT AND DIED FOR?

early light/calgary

op/ed/presidential candidates and religious convictions

As a relative neophyte to social media,this is my first real experience of an American election on Facebook.Of course,like most users,the comments posted on my timeline ranged from mildly amusing to downright side splitting,from irreverent to irrelevant,from missing the mark to striking a blow straight through the heart.Many,if not most were obviously partisan,but that did little,in most cases to change the quality of the actual commentary.Nor did they do a great deal to convince me,if I were a member of the American electorate,which I am not,to change my political worldview.

Among the many posts that I received was one of an individual,presumed to be Barack Obama,holding a book called "The Post American World."This book is alleged to be a Muslim view of the world after the defeat of America,but,having not actually read this book,I cannot vouch for that.Rest assured,though,it will soon be on my reading list.The whole point to this post though seems to be to imply that which I've heard spoken nearly continually since Obama first appeared on the scene.That Barack Obama is a Muslim.And,in fact the photo above goes one step further and attempts to connect that fact with liberal politics in a non sequiter fashion.Moreover,there is a real question in my mind as to whether or not the person pictured here is actually Obama.But I suppose that a lot of the sort of persons who post things such as this,preaching to a choir of those who are predisposed to believe such drivel whenever they see that hated word"liberal",believe that all black people look alike.Not that it really matters,especially to rank and file ignoramuses,but I'm not buying into it.

While there is plenty intellectually wrong about this post that I could point out,I wish to use it to the purpose of asking some questions we really should be thinking about.Namely,do we have the right to know everything about the religious beliefs of presidential candidates,in this case Barack Obama and Mitt Romney?More to the point,is this information at all useful,or is it extraneous and distracting?Should I be concerned if I were to see Romney holding,carrying or reading a Book Of Mormon.

As those of you who read my posts might suspect,I have a particular worldview that informs such matters for me.As an Evangelical Christian and also a liberal,I have an opinion as to whether I want to see the free world intrusted to a Muslim,a Mormon,a Christian,an Atheist,a Nhilist or any other given type of believer.It goes without saying,perhaps that I would prefer to have leadership that is open to being guided by God.That,essentially is the Christian point of view.

The question,however is not so much about what any given qualified candidate believes,what he reads or how he chooses to worship God,though again,as a Christian I have my obvious preferences.Preferences which I hasten to note,don't seem to be available among the current group of presidential candidates.The question is more a matter of how,and to what extent any given candidate's religious views can be expected to inform his politics.And to that end,America seems to do rather well on the whole.While many presidents,perhaps all of them, have had particular religious views,zealotry hardly ever rules the day.It should also be noted that it is the few among religious believers that can be labeled zealots.Moreover,not all members of a particular faith believe exactly the same things.But it is interesting to view past candidates,or potential candidates and note the names of those who were either not nominated or not elected.Even as an Evangelical Christian,when I see names like Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson on that list,I believe I'm looking at a system that gets it right enough most of the time.

Should I be concerned if indeed Obama were shown to be a Muslim?Perhaps,though I make note of the fact that it was under his administration that Bin Laden was killed,in fulfillment of foreign policy initiated by a previous Republican government.While determining the intricacies of how Obama's faith may have played out in this matter,I think it is safe to think that it was only incidentally informative to the matter at hand.The right actions were taken.That is the bottom line.Religion of any stripe did not prevent Obama from doing the right thing.

Should I be concerned that the Republican candidate believes in a religion that is based on gold tablets,written in ancient Egyptian and revealed to a man called Joseph Smith,before they were sucked back up into heaven before their very existence could ever be verified.Perhaps.In truth ,Mormonism seems a totally illogical form of belief to me.But that does not mean that I think Romney would be likely to put his convictions ahead of his oath of office.It is far more likely,in my mind that he would be informed by Mormon belief,perhaps guided by it,but not apt to impose the totality of that belief on his politics in general.And really,it is his political views,not his religious ones that cause me the greatest concern.

On the whole,I think that it serves us very little to know the exact details of each candidates religious beliefs.It really just muddles things,at least in my head,to the point that I'm less likely to make a good choice between the two.Voters,in my estimation are far better off knowing and having confidence in the fact that America has a healthy enough political ecology,a strong enough constitution and an informed enough electorate to ensure that it's system actually works to the point of keeping the ground level and correcting it's own mistakes over the course of history,at least for the most part.

Having said that,religious belief might well be something to consider in rendering a vote.But it should be far from the only thing.A politician's past record and known political beliefs,integrity and stated policy bears much closer consideration and examination.