"WHERE DO YOU STAND?"

...............Introduction, Challenge And Response, In G Major...........

A mother asked President Bush, "Why did my son have to die in Iraq?"
Another mother asked President Kennedy "Why did my son have to die in Viet Nam?"
Another mother asked President Truman, "Why did my son have to die in Korea?
Another mother asked President F.D. Roosevelt, "Why did my son have to die at Iwo Jima?"
Another mother asked President W. Wilson, "Why did my son have to die on the battlefield of France?"
Yet another mother asked President Lincoln, "Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?"
And yet another mother asked President G. Washington, "Why did my son have to die near Valley Forge?"

Then long, long ago, a mother asked...
.................Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die on a cross outside of Jerusalem?"

The answers to all these are similar --
"So that others may have life and dwell in peace, happiness and freedom."

This was emailed to me with no author and I thought the magnitude and the simplicity were awesome IF YOU DON'T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS, PLEASE, FEEL FREE... TO STAND IN FRONT OF THEM !!!

First off, to answer your question: Yes, I stand behind our troops. (And no, I’m not fool enough to "stand in front of them.") There’s a part of me that regrets that I never had the chutzpah to stand with them, not even in peaceful service, much less in battle. I can’t imagine that the military would have had any use for a neurotic, insecure doodoo head like myself anyway. Not even the Boy Scouts, for that matter. Not to worry. This great nation of ours hasn't lost a shred of greatness on account of my exclusion from military duty. With me, it wasn’t an issue of "Don’t ask; don’t tell." It was more like "Don’t bother!"

It staggers me to think of the sacrifices these fighting men (and women) have made since the days of George Washington, and continue to make to this day, to protect the freedoms cozy little fat kids like me take for granted...and (ostensibly) to make the world a safer place. To say nothing of the grief and hardship their loved ones have had to endure. I deeply respect their courage, their discipline, their devotion to the nation they serve. I’d like nothing better than to see our troops prevail in whatever conflict they’re engaged in, and to return home safely to their families, proud of their success, and secure in the knowledge that what they accomplished was good and necessary (even if Ted Gar-doodoo Head doesn’t always share that conviction).

There are those who would argue (and I hope you’re not one of them) that a person can’t say that he supports our troops if he doesn’t support their cause. Not so. Like a lot of other Americans, I have some serious misgivings about Iraq. But we need to be clear about something: Troops don’t make policies or choose their nation’s causes. Their mission is to serve their nation, not to justify their leaders’ politics. The fact I, Ted, can’t support our government’s present course, however much I’d like to, doesn’t mean that I respect the loyalty of our servicemen and women any less. Maybe I admire them all the more because they have so much negative sentiment working against them, in addition to the constant and extreme danger they face everyday. And because, unlike the draftees of former days, these men and women have volunteered to serve, without necessarily knowing beforehand what that service would entail. I like to think of them as America’s "substitutes," in that they’ve taken upon themselves a crisis they themselves did not initiate, sacrificed their lives so that you and I wouldn’t have to, and surrendered their own freedoms in order to purchase ours. [Notice the not-so-subtle way I've set you up for a spiritual analogy, which I will make clear later in this epistle.]

Yes, I support our troops. I just wish our leaders had done a better job of supporting them. How so? By assessing, more realistically, the hell hole they were getting themselves into—what they were getting these mothers’ sons into—back when this invasion of Iraq was first conceived. A commander doesn’t "stand behind" the people he’s commissioned to do his dirty work by under equipping them for a mission, then weeping with their bereaved families when they come home in body bags. For one thing, he deploys a large enough force, along with sufficient weapons, equipment, protective gear, backup personnel, etc. to do the job—instead of trusting the calculations of an intractable minimalist in the defense department who insists on making do with what we’ve got.

There was more to winning this war than simply toppling the regime and cleaning up the mess we made. We needed to "win the peace" as well. That meant establishing order, securing the borders, filling the power vacuum we created—in short, taking charge of this freakin’ asylum, BEFORE the inmates beat us to it. What the executive producers of this military blockbuster seemed to lack was a comprehensive game plan, or so-called exit strategy, that looked beyond the initial "shock and awe" they wrecked upon Saddam’s forces (along with however many Iraqi civilians they collaterally damaged in the process, albeit unintentionally). I believe that they should have drafted a more intelligent script, a more flexible script, that foresaw the unforseen, took into account all the extremist scenarios and clashing plot elements already in circulation, and worked them into tighter, more cohesive finale...of sorts. The world is still waiting for something resembling a FINAL ACT: some indication as to how and when this show will end, and how the strategists in Washington plan to get these exhausted players the hell off the stage, out of the theater, and back home.

I don’t pretend to be a military analyst. But I do think that the visionaries leading the charge were short sighted and over confident: too blinded by wrath to accept any counsel other than what they wanted to hear (and what they wanted the public to accept); too wise in their own conceits to entertain the notion that they could possibly, just possibly, have misjudged the horrific cost of this righteous cause for which so many brave sons of mothers would be sacrificed, years after the Commander in Chief proudly announced to the world that our mission was...how did he put it? "Accomplished!" Yes, I believe that’s the word he used.

Of course, you know I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been expressed dozens of times by people more knowledgeable than myself.

It’s useless now to argue over whether or not the U.S. had just cause to invade Iraq in the first place, or to think that there can ever be a tidy ending to the conflict. Fact is, we’re in there. No matter how much we’d all like this mess to end, or wish it had never started, our troops can’t simply pick up their toys and go home tomorrow, anymore than an actor can walk off the stage in the middle of a performance because he hates the show he’s in. Nevertheless, top analysts are calling the U.S. mission in Iraq a flop, and key decision makers are under increased pressure to start wrapping things up over there. It remains to be seen how they’re going to pull that off in the months to come. This "new direction" may involve, among other things, rewriting the ending of the play, or re-describing our goals (which our leaders have done several times already). It’ll surely mean reshaping our collective perception of what constitutes "success," or "completion" of said mission. I’m figuring the shakers and spin-meisters will cobble together a rationale for hauling our butts out of this quagmire that’s as righteous, compelling and politically viable as the one(s) they used to justify initiating this bloody affair in the first place. They’ll have to wag the dog a lot harder this time to pull it off. But they’ll come up with something. They usually do.

Pretty tough tactical-speak, coming from a pampered, abdominally enhanced postal worker (me), who never fought, never served, never graduated college, could barely complete a homework assignment, much less a military operation. However, lest anyone judge him, I must reiterate that this "reason why-er" has nothing but admiration for the "do-and-die-ers" who are going about a job he could never bring himself to do. For all his squawking and sarcasm, he knows full well that the freedom to express his opinions (for what they’re worth), isn’t "free." It was purchased with much blood and sweat by braver men with firmer guts, big hearts and brass gonads. (By women too with similar attributes, minus the gonads.) He only wishes he could love their mission as much as he loves the America they serve.

The "shock and awe" are all mine (if I may gently slip back into the first person). I look at the carnage and devastation in Iraq, and I shudder. Then again, I have to ask myself: Who am I to say that this catastrophic waste of human life hasn’t somehow served a greater good (other than population control) which the average taxpayer’s mind (how pedestrian!) has so far failed to grasp? The answer is: I’m nobody. For that, I’m most grateful. Regardless of how I (and the majority of Americans) may feel about the war, the decision to initiate it wasn’t mine to make. I’m not the one who has to answer for the mayhem this unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused, or the hundreds of billions of dollars our continued presence there has cost us. I’m not the one who has to stand before the world with omelet on my face and justify "staying the course" in a war which most analysts have called a failure. I thank God that I’m not the poor brave soul way on the other side of the world, entrenched in a conflict that folks back home quit believing in.

America owes more to her fighting men and women than it does to my disbelief. Would that the Debacle in Iraq-al better exemplified the sentiment expressed in your e-mail: that they gave their lives "...so that others may have life and dwell in peace, happiness and freedom."

The real tragedy in all this noble bloodshed, as I see it, is not simply that so many mother's sons have died since our nation was in diapers, or that they necessarily died in vain, BUT that the precious lives and freedoms they sacrificed couldn't have made a more lasting, beneficial impact on the state of the world. For all the wars that have been fought in the name of peace, people here and around the globe are hardly what you would call "at peace," either with themselves or with each other. States of "happiness" and/or "freedom" (such as the mind of finite, sinful man perceives them) are as illusory as they are elusive, relative to one's own passions, priorities, standards of entitlement, etc., subject to change at any moment, and mingled with the mortal fear that some lawless entity, force, gang of infidels, etc., will snatch that happiness and freedom away—and snatch us away with it. [Rhetorical "us"]

Little wonder that we [rhetorical "we"] as individuals, as Americans, as citizens of this stressed out world, can never let our guard down, never be truly free, never know lasting happiness this side of Heaven. It’s the reason that we [rhetorical "we"] have been compelled, since time immemorial, to defend to the death that which is ours. It’s why we must utilize every tactic, spend every dollar (both real and hypothetical, including that which doesn’t belong to us), and deploy every last mother’s son and daughter to secure that happiness, even if that involves making somebody else miserable (terribly sorry, can’t be helped, "War is hell"). It’s why we [rhetorically speaking] must turn every rhetorical trick in our arsenal of political double-talk (i.e. "I, me, we, and us" as opposed to "you, youse guys, and them other guys") in order to legitimize our position...AND absolve our rhetorical selves from any rhetorical blame.

Iraq, of course, is only a piece of the larger puzzle. There’s a far more fundamental issue gnawing at this writer’s heart than whether or not the U.S. can ever put to Humpty Dumpty together again. I'm talking about the pervasive, unrelenting EVIL in this veil of fears that no human sacrifice (or political debate) will ever quench. After all the battles that have been fought, causes won, advances made, lessons learned, the dangers we face today are as clear and present as they were yesterday. More so, in fact. Which makes the deployment of these mothers’ sons and daughters an equally clear and present necessity. Never in our nation’s history, in any nation’s history, has there been a time when human sacrifice wasn’t required, whether for the greater good, or the greater evil.

Thus will it always be until Christ reigns on Earth. For unless there is peace in man’s heart, there can ever be true peace in this world. That’s my belief. What has fallen can never be set right. And the more man tries to fix what’s broken, the more broken the world becomes. Because man himself, by his very nature, is fallen down and broken. And because only Christ has the power to change a man’s heart. That’s something that no war waged by men, not even the holiest and most "justified" of causes, has ever been able to accomplish.

Which brings me to the main contention I have with the e-mail message you forwarded me. I agree that we need to honor the men and women who have given their lives to preserve our freedom and way of life. But I think that the author takes an audacious leap in suggesting that their sacrifices are in any way worthy to be compared to the crucifixion of God’s Son outside Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Not only does the comparison not support his argument, it poses a far more significant question: Do I "stand behind" the Son of God? Do you? My answer is YES! Not only do I stand behind Him, I trust in Him. AND I trust in the Father Who sent Him to that cross. Because I know that Jesus suffered and died, not just to make the world a better place, and certainly not because it was politically expedient for Him to do so. Unlike all the sons of mothers who sacrificed their lives to purchase our freedom, the Son of God sacrificed His life to purchase our eternal salvation, and to free us [personal "us" this time] from the bondage of sin.

I find it ironic, what with all this discussion of war, that so many of Jesus' would-be followers believed that His mission on Earth, that Messiah's mission, was to free Jerusalem from Roman occupation. They were profoundly disheartened when He ended up on a cross: condemned by the very people He'd come to liberate, and executed by very oppressors He had the power to extinguish. Certainly, Jesus could have prevailed against Rome...IF that had been the Father's will. Moreover, He wouldn’t have had to "stay the course" for three agonizing years, wreck havoc on the city and lead 60-80,000 soldiers and civilians to their slaughter in order to "accomplish" that mission...IF that had been His mission. He could have disposed of the Romans in a one day, if He wanted to—in one hour. Talk about "shock and awe!"

Thankfully, punishing the bad guys for their transgressions was not on Jesus’ agenda. His mission, rather, was to save us all from our "badness." How? Not through force. But by becoming our "substitute"—i.e.: taking our transgressions, and our enemies’ transgressions, upon Himself; and by receiving the punishment we deserved, the judgement our sins demanded. Through his death and resurrection, he satisfied, once and for all time, a debt He did not owe and we could never pay, forgave us our trespasses, and made a way for us to come to the Father. That’s one mission no amount of human sacrifice could ever accomplish. No amount of blood that man has ever shed since time began could cleanse our hearts and reconcile us with God. Holy wars have not made man more holy. Just causes have not justified him. Right attitudes have not made him more righteous.

The best part about our salvation is that, while it was bought for us at a great price, it's free to us. There is nothing we need do, nor could do, to earn this reward. We simply must take God at His Word: accept the fact that we are dead (spiritually bankrupt) in our sins; believe that Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection are all sufficient for our personal salvation; and place our trust in Him and Him alone, not in our own strength, be it moral, intellectual, financial, religious or military. Christ’s mission is indeed "accomplished." The war has been won. The victory over sin is ours. Forgiveness and eternal life are God’s gift to us. HOWEVER, that gift doesn’t belong to us if we don’t claim it. It isn’t enough to stick a candle in it and admire it from a distance. We must receive this gift of forgiveness and eternal life in our hearts in order to possess it. Only then can those of us who are dead be "born again" into God's kingdom. What sense is there in celebrating the birth of the Giver if one doesn't accept His gift? Unlike the fragile, temporal peace which men have fought and died for, the peace Jesus offers is real, not figurative or hypothetical. God's salvation is personal, and it’s everlasting. It can’t be negotiated. And no one can take it from us.