Posted by
Bert Chapman on Sunday, May 27, 2007 1:31:23 PM
Memorial Day is often thought of as the beginning of summer and a long three day holiday weekend in late May. Here in Indiana, it is usually associated with the running of the Indianapolis 500. However, Memorial Day is so much more than these superficial events. We are now in the sixth year of our struggle with Islamist terror. Over 3,000 Americans have given their lives fighting this evil in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as in other places we may not know about. While we mourn the dead from all wars fought by this country, we should be especially attentive to those who have lost friends and family members in this ongoing struggle. We should offer to help them out any way we can and ask for God's benevolent mercy on them. The numbers of those who die fighting this terror will inexorably increase in the years to come. As a nation we need to honor their sacrifice and remember that this will be a war whose success cannot be measured in the ways conventional conflicts such as World Wars I and II were. This is a long term generational conflict that will not result in a surrender ceremony aboard a U.S. naval warship. The key battles in this war will not occur on battlefields with memorable names like Gettysburg, Normandy, Iwo Jima, or Inchon. Victory in this war will be long and hard and require our nation to learn new definitions of victory and sacrifice. It will require having a long-term historical perspective on this conflict that recognizes it is not a conflict in which victory can be achieved through a smart weapon or a mouse click. It will require breaking the spiritual pretensions of a fanatical messianic enemy and recovering our own unconditional trust in God in an age where so many people mistakenly believe science and technology have "answered" or are the "answer" to the problems of human existence.
Honor those who have died this Memorial Day and steel ourselves for a long protracted battle ahead!