Memorial Day: Honor the Troops, Not Necessarily the War

This past weekend, I read the novel Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.

The novel is set in the Pacific Northwest, where a Japanese-American is on trial for the murder of a fisherman. The ensuing trial brings out the racial tension between the white people on the island and their Japanese-American neighbors.

The novel's strength is in its complexity: the citizens of Japanese descent have good reasons to hate their white neighbors, many of whom took advantage of them when they were shipping off to internment camps in Manzanar, California. And the white folks have some good reasons to fear the Japanese, since many of the young men went off to fight in the pacific campaigns against the Japanese. Fighting past stereotypes and prejudice is difficult when faced with such extreme life experiences.

So there's understandable hatred and fear and both sides. The trick is getting past it. Some do. Most don't.

One of the novel's more harrowing passages is when Guterson chronicles a story of the invasion of the small pacific island of Betio, in which on the main characters, Ishmael, has to fight. The horrifying description reminded me, again, of the horrors of war and how many men in my grandfather's generation fought in WWII. Many didn't return.

It's difficult for me, sometimes, to not get angry at the very idea of war. It's a terrible thing. Necessary, perhaps, but terrible. I was given a list by the College Board last week of 20th Century American novels that they most recommend teaching in AP English. It's amazing how many of these novels were birthed from the minds of men who came back from war unable to deal with the horror and psychological chaos and moral ambiguity they encountered. From Joseph Heller's Catch 22 to Arthur Miller's All My Sons to Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 to Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

I balk sometimes, at the current war in Iraq. I wonder at the wisdom of it. And my uneasiness with this was made even more pronounced this weekend. A lot of churches had services this past Sunday that honored Memorial Day. For a little while, I was a bit uneasy because it seemed a bit like they're honoring the idea of war, or this current war.

But then I realized that there is a difference between supporting the troops and supporting the war. This helped me a great deal because I have no difficulty praying for healing, hope and safety of our veterans, both present and past.

I just hoped that Pastors made that distinction.