We will not go to war. War will come to us

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(Written May 27, 2015)

for The Bold Pursuit

Americans refuse to go to war, and with good reason.

Wars are deadly, tragic, and costly.  The tragedy is on many levels.  For example,  I once worked closely over a long period of time with an adult orphan of war, where I learned that one of the most poignant heartbreaks of combat is the emptiness— which exists in the life of someone whose father died overseas while she was yet an infant.  He never saw her.  She never met him, never felt his loving embrace, never had any discussions with him.  Her only reference point for such things was to witness them in the lives of her childhood friends, whose fathers came home every day.  In similar manner, hundreds of thousands of American children became unseen casualties of war.

The last time our nation went to war was in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Or did we?  We didn’t go.  We sent our young men instead, and even some of our daughters.  We stayed home, enjoying the comfort and safety of a prosperous nation, while others suffered and died in our place.  At home, there was no war.  It had not come to us.

There was, however, a price.  Thousands of Americans died, thousands came back permanently disabled.  Many children will never know their father; many wives were widowed.

Shamefully, many more thousands of Americans— perhaps millions— have little or no knowledge of those overlapping, years long, wars.  We spent blood and treasure in enormous amounts, but too many Americans are oblivious to that fact.  Sadly, some do not even care.

It is good that we do not wish to go to war— but war will come to us.  The enemy has a level of commitment we cannot fathom.  They will arrive, and when they do, they intend to wreak as much havoc here, as they have in the villages of Iraq, where they have massacred thousands.

When war comes to America, what will it find?  Will it find the fury and determination that the Japanese found in us, in 1941, when they brought war to us?  Or will it find the complacency of an America that fawns over its sports heroes and rock stars, but knows little or nothing about the national heroes, our warriors, who kept us out of slavery?

Will war find America being led by such as a Winston Churchill, who promised “blood, toil, sweat and tears,” or by a Neville Chamberlain, who thought he could appease Hitler into peace?  That appeasement only strengthened and emboldened the enemy.  It made the war more costly, more painful, and more difficult to win.

In this dark, pre-war hour, we find that ours is a nation with weak leaders whose policies have continually failed.  Yet these same leaders pompously assure us that we are safe and secure.  We find a nation of college students— future leaders— who hold that same-sex marriage is a right, but who believe that personal self-defense should be criminalized.

Not all is bleak.  There is some good news.  There are still many Americans who see the danger that is rising, and who have the courage to stand for what is right, even when the price is high.

War will find us, both the weak and the strong alike.  It will find those of us whose faith is in God, and those whose faith is in mammon.  It will find those who uphold the Constitution, and those who trash it.  It will find some of us standing to fight, and some hiding under beds, perhaps smoking a newly legalized intoxicant, unable to distinguish between good and evil.

Where will it find you?

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