The Meaning of Memorial Day
I thought I understood the meaning of Memorial Day. I thought the military uniform hanging in my closet taught me the meaning of Memorial
Day. I thought that growing up the child of a soldier, and the grandchild of a sailor taught me the meaning of Memorial Day. But I was wrong.
I sensed the meaning of Memorial Day. A few years ago I preached a sermon about standing at the Vietnam Wall with my father, watching him trace names of friends across the wall. It was the only time I ever saw tears in his eyes. I saw my grandfather visit the Punchbowl WWII memorial in Hawaii, and I saw those same silent tears.
I thought I knew the meaning of Memorial Day… but I did not. Not until my wife came and told me that the television news had just reported the death of my friend, military partner, and former roommate in the Al Anbar province of Iraq on December 6th, 2006. It was not until I realized that I too would one day have a name to trace across a memorial somewhere, the name of Travis Patriquin, that I learned the meaning of Memorial Day.
While I do not believe in a spiritual place called hell, I think General William Tecumseh Sherman was right when he said that “War is Hell”. It is a hell that exists in this time, in this world, not in some metaphysical afterlife. I wish with all my heart we could rid ourselves of it… I wish for the day to come when we no longer send our young men and women off to walk through that hell. I wish for the day when our problems are solved by meeting, not by killing. It is rarely those who should be meeting that instead face the killing. I wish with all my heart for what military forces we have to become a tool of peace, not a weapon of war.
Clinton Lee Scott once said “Always it is easier to pay homage to our prophets than to heed the direction of their vision”. The true meaning of Memorial Day is not homage… it is not to honor those who have served, those who have died for our nation. Oh, that is what the media will tell us, what the President will say when he lays a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery in a few days. I expect him to strike a tone of “honor our dead, and standing resolute.” No, it is not honor that our war dead ask of us. Honor is the easy way out of the vision they call us to.
The true meaning of Memorial Day is to remember. It is to remember that the cost of war is almost always too high. The true meaning of Memorial Day is not to honor our dead, but to remember the price they paid. To remember the price their families pay. To remember the physical and psychic wounds that the survivors of war, on all sides, carry with them till the end of their days. To remember the lives never lived. To remember the horrors unleashed upon civilian populations by the tools of modern warfare. To remember…
I want to cease thinking of Memorial Day as if it were a holiday, for it is not. I want to end the Memorial Day sales and the picnics, the trips to the lake and the hamburgers and hotdogs with stars and stripes napkins. We should never “celebrate” Memorial Day. I want Memorial Day not to be a holiday, but rather a National Day of Mourning.
It began as “Decoration Day”, a day when families and friends would go to cemeteries and place flowers and flags upon the graves of those who had died in the Civil War. From those graves they heard, and they remembered the cost of war. I want to return to that spirit, so that the memory of the true costs of war is fresh in our minds, renewed annually… so that perhaps we can honor our dead by sending no more to join them.
Keep your Memorial Day plans, if you have them, but remember the “reason for the season”. We do not honor the casualties of war with flowers and speeches, but by truly and deeply remembering the cost of war when we contemplate sending our service members of today into harm’s way. We honor them by remembering that war is a hell that should rarely, if ever, be unleashed.
Remember.
Yours in faith,
Rev. David Pyle
www.celestiallands.org
Chaplain, U.S. Army Reserve
Professionalism and Pluralism in the Military Chaplaincy
In the fall of 2011 I was honored to attend the first ever OutServe Leadership Conference. This was the first time for this organization of LGB persons actively serving in the military to gather publicly, since such public gatherings and recognition was made possible by the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Harass, Don’t Pursue. It was held in Las Vegas, Nevada… and even with the setting it was as professional a military conference I have ever attended… and I have attended more than a few Chaplain Corps Conferences.
It was an honor for me to be able to sign one of the official copies of the Repeal of DADT “Chaplain David Pyle” (see picture, above).
I was attending the conference as an ally, and in my role as a member of The Forum on the Military Chaplaincy. With a fellow UU Military Chaplain, I spoke in a workshop about Professionalism and Pluralism in the Military Chaplaincy, and how LGB service members can engage more conservative Chaplains in dialog about what it means to be an LGB person serving in the military.
More than this, I listened. I had numerous conversations with LGB service members about their experience. Several of those I spoke with were Unitarian Universalists. I heard stories about service members who had been “outed” by their Chaplains. I heard stories about service members feeling they had to care for their own religious needs while deployed, because they did not believe their chaplain would support them. I heard stories about joyously finding that there was one Chaplain at their base who was welcoming and affirming of LGB persons, and building a relationship of trust with that chaplain, after having had hard experiences with other chaplains.
More than all of this, I heard a perception from many that the Chaplain Corps might be wonderful for many service members, but it just was not there for them. They were excluded from the requirement that military chaplains “perform or provide, and care for all”.
As I flew home from the conference, I sat thinking about our Military Chaplain Corps, and the realization that Chaplains had been failing all of these service members for decades. Their distrust of chaplains was an earned distrust… chaplains had wounded many of these young men and women. Chaplains had, often with the best of intentions, said thing to and about these young women and men that were soul-damaging. In hoping to “save”, what had been done was to separate… to make someone feel that they are outside of God’s love, and outside of those whom the Chaplain Corps cares for…
And for that, I am sorry. I cannot apologize for the whole Chaplain Corps, but I can apologize for my complicity in it… I realized that many of these young men and women had never had anyone apologize for the way Chaplains have treated them. And so, for myself and for whatever it might mean, I did apologize… and I committed myself to helping the Chaplain Corps grow into the fullness of no longer treating LGB service members in such shameful ways.
I was flying home to move back into my role as a Parish Minister for a UU Congregation (I went right from the Airport to an event at the church I serve), and it had me thinking about the difference of role I have in these two ministries, and how my faith plays a different part in each of these roles for me.
As a Parish Minister, my Liberal Faith as a Unitarian Universalist Minister is what I wear on my sleeve. I preach the gospel of interdependence and inherent worth. I lead a congregation in social justice actions. I speak the saving grace of universal salvation whenever I am given the opportunity. My faith is a public faith that I present to the world, and encourage the congregation I serve to join me in doing so.
Yet, in military chaplaincy, and indeed in any chaplaincy, my faith plays a very different role. My Liberal Faith as a Unitarian Universalist is the inner strength I need to be with people in the best and the worst moments of their lives. My Liberal faith is what calls me and allows me to be with someone else, focusing on what their faith asks and requires of them in a particular place and time. As a military chaplain, my personal faith is of utmost importance… for me… for how I have the strength to be with someone else in their confusion, pain, loss, grief and hurt. As a military chaplain, I am called to be with them in their religious faith… not to import into the moment my own.
As the plane was landing in Los Angeles, I realized that perhaps the issue among military chaplains is that we do not understand or accept these two very different understandings of ministry. Many of the behaviors that wounded so many of the service members I spoke with this weekend would have been completely appropriate coming from a Parish Minister of a conservative tradition in a civilian setting… but were inappropriate (in my opinion) from someone entrusted with the responsibility and authority of military chaplaincy.
So, when denominations and seminaries teach only the Parish/church model of ministry, how do we inspire ministers who wish to be Military Chaplains to understand and accept this different role for their personal faith? I do not know. Perhaps we need to change the standards of who can become a military chaplain. Perhaps we need to require Clinical Pastoral Education. Perhaps we need to take a look at what denominational endorsers are telling their chaplains their role in the military should be.
All I know is that, as I listened to the stories of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Guardians, and Marines I spoke with, it was apparent to me the cost of not addressing this in our Military Chaplain Corps.
For, as I listened to the stories, I felt ashamed.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David
