Remembering our Soldiers

Why is it that we only really appreciate the American Soldier when he is fighting Nazis? We were not going to write this for two weeks yet. After all, Memorial Day approaches, all of two Mondays from now. And isn't that when we are supposed to remember those who have fallen for the sake of those of us who remain? We should recall them, of course. The American Soldier, and his compatriots from Canada and Great Britain and France and China and dozens of other nations from around the world fell while fighting that menace. The Nazis were awful, to be sure. But were they only reason the American Soldier fought and died? Did not the American Soldier fight and fall at Lexington and Concord? Citizen soldiers, yes, they were. And they stood their ground, refusing to allow the Redcoats to secure a garrison of patriotic supplies at Concord, pestering the British all the way back to their garrison at Boston. Did the American Soldier not fall at Fort Ticonderoga, or Bunker Hill, or at Saratoga? Did he not fall at the retreat from Manhattan, or while fighting the Hessians at Princeton or Trenton, or while attacking redoubts numbered 9 and 10 at Yorktown? Why do we not remember that American Soldier? During the Wars which we do not remember so fondly, at sea against the French in 1798, at the Raisin River right here in Michigan in 1813 during the War of 1812, did he not fall? At Tripoli during the Wars in 1804 and 1815? Why do we not remember the American Soldier from then? Do we remember Fort Sumter? Do we remember Antietam? Do we remember Bull Run, battles One and Two, or the siege of Vicksburg? Do Chambersburg and Gettysburg, Gettysburg, the battle which many historians argue is one of the ten most critical battles of World History, World History, mind you, mean anything these days? Do we appreciate what that means to our history? The doughboys in World War I; do we know them these days? Yes, they are almost universally gone now. They should not be forgotten. World War II and Korea live in our memories. Yet we forget Korea. That is, other than with the greatest cynicism, as presented by M*A*S*H. Why do we recall only with disdain the great victories of the American Soldier in Vietnam? Why do we not acknowledge the tremendous victory of the American Soldier of the TET Offensive during the New Year of 1968? John Thomas Cosgriff, you were there, as a 19 year old soldier in the artillery, having arrived there on December 20, 1967 and having fought against the Viet Cong and having blown them off the field of battle as an effective fighting force for a year, an entire year, afterwards? Why do we forget you? Why do we forget the American Soldier of Operation Iraqi Freedom? Why do we forget the American Soldier who toils each day in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why do we forget the American Soldier who toils each day holding the Al Qaeda militants at bay at Guantanamo, safe from attacking their fellow citizens? We should not. We should not forget you any more than we should forget the veteran of Granada or Operation Desert Storm, of Panama or Haiti or the 200 or more military operations in our history. Has every action of the US been right? No; we are human. We have made mistakes. Where we have, nature and nature's God rightly demand we regret them and make amends where we can. Yet where we are right, where our sons and daughters have not died in vain, we must remember. We must give them their due. The Nazis have not been the only evil in the world. They almost certainly were not the worst evil, either. Far worse has happened, and much of that blood does indeed stain the American hand. Yet it does not soil the hand of the American Soldier. He was always and everywhere concerned with rightness and justice. And that, dear friends, is how we ought remember him.