Nov. 11, 2021, celebrates the 103rd anniversary of “the war to end all wars.” The war was started by the murder of an Austrian royal personage in Serbia, leading Austria to declare war on Serbia. The killer of the duke was not even Serbian; he was from Bosnia. That single act of one man led to the death of tens of millions of human beings.
The ancient sages suggest that there are three poisons of the human spirit: unremitting passion, aggression and indifference. The underlying cause of that great war from a human perspective was excessive nationalism, military aggression and public indifference. Just 25 years later that same spasmodic poison led to the Second World War, in which the cost in human life is immeasurable.
A few years ago I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. On a wall in the museum were hundreds of shoes from the victims of the death camps. I observed in the midst of this huge pile of shoes a small dainty woman’s shoe. I could not escape the impression that filled my mind that a human foot had filled that shoe, the foot of a murdered woman. The cost of the poisons of the human spirit struck my soul. The wall of shoes reminded me that unless we remain vigilant, that poison is ever present.
The sobering experience of the Holocaust did not leave me easily. The wall of shoes kept burgeoning my mind. One day out of the blue, I remembered that I had seen another wall of shoes in Vietnam. I had been circuit-riding ships off the coast of Vietnam and was on the hospital ship USS Repose. My visit was short but focused on ministering to the wounded and dying Marines. I was taken down into the hull of the ship to the autopsy room. There was a wall of boots, probably 12 feet long and 8 feet high. Just stacks of boots. In each of these boots had been a now-dead Marine whose body was waiting in preparation for casketing and return to families in the United States.
Today, we are called to remember. Veterans Day is not in my mind a celebration of war, of military rhetoric or simple indifference. It ought to be a sobering reminder that the cost of war erodes the fabric of civilized society.
We honor the courage, commitment and service of the men and woman who are called to military duty and came. But let this not be an opportunity to continue the poisons of the human spirit. The damage done to those of us who are veterans runs deep below the surface of our intentions. How many veterans live lives of despair and hopelessness? How much damage is done to the human psyche in those who are called to serve in times of crisis?
As a veteran of the violence of war, as a man who frequently sees walls of shoes that remind me of the preciousness of human life and the cost of indifference, I honor Veterans Day as a calling for caution, tack and diplomacy. War should be a moral failure. When at times we are called to violence by necessity, we must not pursue the belief that we have found a solution to the human dilemma. I also want to avoid any suggestion that the issues of our time reflect upon the courage and commitment of our men and woman in uniform.
Veterans Day ought to be a time of sobering remembrance. At a time when there is so much uncertainty, decay of moral values and divisiveness, let us not fall into irrational belief, untested truth and aggravated passion. Let us stand for reconstructive justice. Let us stand for honest disagreement without rancor. Let our faithfulness stand beyond nationalism, aggression and indifference. Let us stand for all that is compassionate, equanimity and just in all creation.
Kahu Richard Walenta, now retired in the Kahumana Community in Waianae, was a Navy chaplain in Vietnam.
