Simple Gift

I always have a very emotional Veteran's Day. I think for anyone who has ever donned a uniform, especially during a time of war or conflict, there will always be mixed emotions on this day. On the one hand, there is a very profound feeling of pride and accomplishment at having served your country. I always get this very Heinleinesque feeling of duty, honor, and responsibility when I think of the fact that I am a Veteran - that I put my patriotism into action, that I walked what I talked. But on the other hand, being a veteran almost always forces us to recall some sacrifice, some horror, and some innocence lost. No matter what you do in the military, you always shed something in order to feed the tree of liberty.

And so, this Veteran's Day, falling on a Sunday as it did, I found myself in church being honored and feeling small. As it so happened, our choir was singing A Simple Gift - a Shaker tune - about the simple gifts God bestows upon us. I was struck by the fact that this beloved tune was being sung on Veteran's Day and that the Shakers are one group known for their pacifism. To me, there was nothing wrong with that. Every soldier will agree that a little less war would be okay.

Before the service, my Pastor walked up to me and asked if I would read the Litany for Veterans, representing all the church veterans with my voice. I told him that I would be honored.

The service started and the thoughts began at the same time. My entire Veteran's Day experience always revolves around one particular incident. I only "knew" one soldier killed during the Gulf War. He was a quiet kid who had been in our school's ROTC program. So when it comes time to honor the fallen soldiers, I always think of him - even though I'm not sure I ever spoke a word to him in four years of High School. But I can't help but thinking of other sacrifices made during that war.

The incident occured near the end of the war, after the Marines and the Army had already pretty much taken back all of Kuwait and were driving on Baghdad. By that point, I had transfered away from my analyst job because we'd pretty much obliterated the Iraqi Navy already and was working with the Marines sending intel photos via an overglorified fax machine to the Third Marine Air Wing in Saudi Arabia. We got a dispatch from a marine recon unit that some Iraqi soldiers were setting up an anti-ship battery somewhere on the coast - with the intent of firing a missile at our carriers in the Gulf. The Marines spotted the battery with photo reconnaissance and determined the coordinates and had me fax the photo to the 3rd Marine Air Wing. In nearly real time, we "watched" as a Marine Harrier jet streaked in and blew the missile battery to bits - killing all three Iraqi soldiers instantly.

To my knowledge, its the only time I ever took part in the killing of other human beings. Boys, teenagers, like myself, who had maybe joined the Iraqi army to get enough money to go to college, or start a business, or raise a family; blown to bits. Dead. Finished. Gone. They would never again speak to their parents, or kiss their girlfriends, or pray, or laugh. They were simply gone. And I had had a part in their demise.

If Hell is the complete absense of God, then War is surely Hell.

And so, with these thoughts, I stood up to sing Simple Gift. The young teens began by playing a simple chord progression on the handbells, followed by a young lady on the viola, and then the choir began to sing.

"Its a gift to be simple, its a gift to be kind, its a gift to smile and to share a happy mind, its a gift from the Father, as we go on our way, with a joyful song at the end of the day."

The music, the voices, and then, the organ - subtly reinforcing all that had gone before - and all of a sudden I felt It. The Holy Spirit swirled around me and danced with the music and the young musicians and on top of the Choir's heads, and I suddenly couldn't contain the joy that was in my heart - the joy of God consuming me like fire.

From the depths of despair at an act of violence to the heights of joy at an act of worship, I ran the gamut on Veteran's Day. And when I read the Litany, my voice was not my own. My mind was on the families of the deceased, quietly mourning their loved ones who never returned, and on those still engaged in combat, who are even now fighting for their survival and being forced to kill in order to claim a dubious, human, victory.

We are called Veterans because we have been asked to sacrifice ourselves or our selves for the greater good. We do this willingly. And we bear the scars of our struggles.

In the end, its not such a simple gift after all.