Gossip as Gospel

This should probably be filed under new examples of age-old conflicts – a discussion which gets us nowhere:

The lack of response to the “torture manual” by so many who decry the very existence of Guantanamo is discouraging, but the comment string on Surber’s post raises a different (more theoretical if perhaps no larger) question. An early comment by Talboito argues:

Yes, the United States must be above even “false stories” of torture.

We are the United States.

Most of us (probably all) would agree that the United States needs to hold itself to a higher standard than such barbarism. A telling if minor reason is that while beheadings may be seen as a recruiting tool in some cultures, they are not likely to be in ours. Recruiting people drawn to swear allegiance to the party of the torture manuals is not likely to lead to a very disciplined or very intelligent army. Then of course, as my student said of Hester’s “adultery thing”, there’s always that “moral thing.” And, of course, we become what we do. A country that values both self-consciousness and action needs to intertwine the two.

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Duty Calls

My mother was sharp-tongued and, perhaps I am as well; we were not particularly close. But reading Ann Althouse’s post today, I recognize and salute an attitude. It is true that my mother wanted to leave the village in which she grew up; it is true that she worked her way, first through high school and then college. The Waves, as the service is for so many, was a way out and up. But she joined the Waves in the first months of the war because she embraced duty as she embraced rights. As her mother had “demonstrated” because she thought women deserved the vote, my mother enlisted because she wanted to ensure that right. I was shocked when a woman in my Sunday School class described her work as a nurse during WWII in terms of oppression – we weren’t given the same money as the men, we weren’t. . . and I thought how such an idea would never have occurred to my mother. She felt lucky to serve.

She remembered those years fondly because she traveled the country; she met and worked with politicians and a variety of women, all of whom wanted to give. She spoke with pride of the women she recruited. One had parents who invited my mother to dinner and fervently said that their daughter didn’t want – and they didn’t want for her – a “feather dusting” job. She wanted to serve. She spoke of African-American girls with all the qualifications for officers who wouldn’t, yet, be enlisted into that route (she held back for a couple of weeks one such application, hearing that officer training would be soon integrated; her African-American enlistees were then put early on that fast track.) In Oklahoma, in the forties, she worked late in old office buildings, following communication paths.  Fifty years later, when she died, a group of Waves, now, too, in their late seventies, drove the hundred miles and paid their respects at her funeral.

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Memorial Day

Lexington & Concord, Saratoga, Valley Forge, Yorktown, the burning of Washington, Battle of New Orleans, Chapultepec, Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, Appomatox, Little Big Horn, San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood, Meuse-Argonne, Pearl Harbor, Bataan Death March, Midway, Kasserine Pass, Normandy, Bastogne, Okinowa, Inchon, Chosin Reservoir, Ia Drang Valley, Hue, Linebacker II, evacuation of Saigon, Desert Storm, 9/11, fall of Baghdad, Falujah — victories and defeats, a hundred battles, a thousand skirmishes, countless deeds unknown to history.

Gratitude and respect for America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and all who have gone in harm’s way to defend America and destroy America’s enemies. God rest the souls of those who died, God give strength to those who were harmed or maimed in the course of their service, God sustain the families of all who serve. God bless America.

(Wretchard discusses the evil of our current and future enemies. If you smirk at the word “evil” you are going to have a rude awakening in the years ahead.)

UPDATE: Neptunus Lex gives us an honor roll for Memorial Day. (Via Photon Courier.)