I Question Therefore I Dishonor?

Parents of soldiers who were killed in Iraq are all over the board in their response to Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war vigil in Texas. From what I read in a New York Times article on Sunday and from what I’ve heard in interviews with family members on T.V., most of the differences are civil and respectful. If they disagree with Cindy's anti-war stance, they disagree gently, compassionately albeit adamantly. The point of disagreement that I simply do NOT understand is that of parents who say that to protest the war is to dishonor the meaning behind the death of their child because they died believing in the cause. In my mind that point should go one step further—that logic should be analyzed.

War on any front, for any cause is failure. It is a failure of the leaders of government to be able to settle a dispute peacefully; it is a failure of diplomacy. It means that despite all our intelligence and all our technology, the leaders feel compelled to resort to an ancient, barbaric method of solving governmental (or political) differences with violence; life-threatening violence not against themselves, but their own citizens. Particularly in such a God fearing nation, war should not be an option.

However, as a result of our leadership’s failures, any soldier who is serving his/her country at a time of war is, of course, being dutiful and doing his/her job. And certainly if they have to go to war, soldiers have to believe that their leaders are sending them to serve a higher cause, a cause that promises ideologically, a better future. How could they put their lives on the line unless they believed their fight would serve a greater good for future generations. So did our deceased soldier believe in the war? Do any of us believe in war? I think it is safer to say we believe in the higher good, or the better world our leaders promise will be the outcome of the war. But a soldier who serves at a time of war is ultimately serving a leader who has failed, a leader who should be willing to recognize his role in the losses and sacrifices his citizens and constituents experience in that failure. In the case of Iraq, I think we have proof beyond a doubt that our leadership failed miserably.

I think Cindy has every right to believe that her leaders failed her and to question those leaders. She has every right to expect her President to help her understand why she had to lose her son to this cause and to make him recognize that more families in this country may be demanding similar or even tougher answers. Where is the dishonor to Casey in his mother trying to reconcile his death with understanding and awareness? Hopefully, her questions will precipitate a peace of some sort (hers, Casey’s, the world’s).