Two weeks ago, we talked, among other things, about the high cost of cheap.  Today, we want to engage spiritually the high cost of war – the cost particularly to the men and women who come home.  Our veterans. 

 

Every Veterans Day there appears to be a tug of war.  Pun intended.

 

One side uses our veterans to proclaim what they see as the glory of battle.  The other side uses our veterans to try to expose what they see as a corrupt U.S. foreign policy. 

 

I have no interest here in discussing politics.  I would like us not to use or misuse our veterans.  Rather, I would like us to remember them.

 

Let us first look at Veterans Day.  Originally, it was Armistice Day.  The armistice came on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour.  The Treaty of Versailles, which would end the Great War – no one yet called it World War I, everyone thought it was so horrible, so bloody, so costly of human life and limb that it would be the war to end all war –the Treaty of Versailles would come a year later.  Armistice Day – 11/11/11 of 1918 was the day horrific fighting stopped.  A year later, President Wilson signed into law the creation of a day to remember this solemn event.  He wrote:

 

"To us in America, the reflections of armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

 

That peace that Wilson spoke of lasted just twenty years.  Then World War II, for we now had learned to number our world wars.  And then Korea. 

 

In 1954, President Eisenhower signed the legislation that changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day, in order to remember all veterans, of all our wars, and not just the vets of World War I.

 

Too many wars.  In my lifetime, we have been almost constantly at war. I was born after World War II.  But in my lifetime there has been the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghan War and the Iraq War.  And this is just U.S. wars!  But there were also other U.S. “actions,” not declared “wars” but U.S. military action in Somalia, Bosnia and Nicaragua.  Sometime later, not today, I’d like us to spend the morning pondering why.  But today is for remembering our veterans.

 

Few of us are untouched by war.  I never knew my Uncle Bill.  He was killed in action in World War II.  I had a friend.  Drafted.  Served in Viet Nam.  He returned home to a country that didn’t like him very much.  He drank himself to sleep for about fifteen years before finally putting his life back together.  It was a tough fifteen years.  But I am so very grateful that he was able to put his life back together.

 

We may agree or disagree about a particular war or all war.  That’s called politics.  We may agree or disagree at the top of our lungs.  That’s called free speech.  And depending on a person’s point of view, that may color whether you vote for this politician or that one.  It’s the government that sends our young men and women into harm’s way.  And since we’re a democracy, they are sent in our name.

 

What bothers me is that we keep sending our men and women into harm’s way and then, much too often, forgetting about them once they get home.  There is a cost to war.  Not simply in dollars.  Not even only in lives lost.  But there is a cost that each person who enters battle must pay.  And for many, it’s a cost that comes due when they return home. 

 

In that context, I would like to introduce to you Sally Jo Gilbert de Vargas, who has not forgotten our vets.  I’ve asked her to be here today to share her thoughts as well as her work with a wonderful organization called Soldier’s Heart.  There is more about both of them in your order of service.

 

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I forgot and therefore left out of the wars in my lifetime the U.S. invasion of Grenada in the early 1980’s, and was reminded of this after the service. 

 

Obviously this was a short sermon.  An introduction to Sally Jo and the important, healing work of “Soldier’s Heart.”  Sally Jo’s talk is not available, but more about Soldier’s Heart may be found at

 

http://soldiersheart.net/

 

And more about Sally Jo’s, Soldier’s Heart Seattle may be found at

 

http://ihcenter.org/groups/soldiersheartseattle