As I mentioned in the previous post, we hosted Willow Creek’s leadership Summit this past week. One of the speakers was Colin Powell. Yes, you read that right… the Colin Powell, former Army General, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs, and Secretary of State. I learned so much from his interview. He never surrounded himself with “yes-men” or thought his decisions to be infallible. He encouraged and even made himself available to those who wished to break the chain of command and bring their problems directly to him. He is an amazing leader and I would vote for him in a heartbeat if he ever chose to run for President of the United States.
But there was a part of his interview that really touched me. They asked him about his nickname, “The Reluctant General” and he said (this is paraphrased, I can’t remember exactly) that war is a failure. It is a failure of diplomacy and politics and it should be the one thing that we avoid at all costs. He said he felt this way after serving two tours in Vietnam and watching men die under his command and in his arms. He said war is the ultimate in human competition, but that it is the most deplorable thing we can do. I was struck by this. Here is a man who’s job (seemingly) is to lead men into battle, and he considers himself a failure if he has to do so.
That very morning a good friend dropped off a couple of CD’s he had burned for me. One of which was the Dropkick Murphys album, The Warrior’s Code. One of the songs on the album is a cover of a cover entitled “The Green Fields of France” originally titled No Man’s Land and written by Eric Bogle. It is the story of a traveler who stumbles upon a graveyard in France, comprised of fallen soldiers from WWI. He stops by the headstone of one Willie McBride and proceeds to rest by the graveside and ponder how Willie’s life must have gone. The last verse goes like this:
And I can’t help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you “The Cause?”
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Between that and Colin Powell’s interview I have really been mourning the soldiers who have given their lives in our latest war. Not only that, but I am becoming angrier and angrier that we were lied to by our current administration to get us into this war and that our cries for peace are continuously ignored and our rights are trampled and taken away by this same administration in a desperate attempt to win a war we’ve already lost. Sure this is an unpopular stance to take in Texas, where it seems that the administration’s approval rating is still high (for those of you wondering who the 20% are that approve of our President, I’m pretty sure they all live here), but I cannot stay silent any longer. I have friends in the military, some coming back, some heading out and damn it, it’s not fair that they risk their lives for a petty personal vendetta while our true enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan are allowed to rebuild their forces.
There, I said it. I ranted and I feel no better because our poor and our young are still fighting to help a rich Texan save face, when in fact only the opposite is happening.
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the last post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?
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