A recent email directed me to this article on KSL.com concerning a World War II vet, Bruce Heilman, riding his motorcycle across America in honor of fallen vets. One statement of his jarred my sense of right and wrong:
“Memorial Day is more than hot dogs and marshmallows, and we all should recognize, in everything we do, that our freedom comes from our military,” Heilman said.
I can’t help but notice that, as an example, for North Koreans, their freedom comes from their military.
Or lack of freedom.
The military is a complex institution. You can’t just say it’s a tool, even though it appears to be one, because if it’s members decide it’s being used improperly, it can disband and dissolve through disobedience. However, the North Korean military protects its society – and its controlling elite – from external threats as well, but freedom isn’t part of that equation.
Our freedoms are protected by the military, but do not come from the military. Those traditional freedoms come from all of us, making the decision to put those freedoms ahead of our instinctive desires for control and security and homogeniety and many other things. Paradoxically, by putting our traditional freedoms ahead of those other desires, we, in large part, guarantee those desires – although perhaps not in the form we’d like to see. We are a heterogenuous society, which means finding compromises and following rules of justice blind to sectarian and commercial cries of certitude.
So, I admire Bruce’s spirit, but I cannot embrace his comment. I also didn’t much care for the other half of his quoted comment, “… in everything we do …” but it’s also a little vague, so I shan’t venture further on that path. The implied militarism just makes me jumpy.
