Memorial Day (1)

Memorial Day.  One of those ritual gestures by which humanity tries to find some meaning, or maybe just some comfort, in the sacrifices that so many - but by no means all - make to the Moloch of war, the most destructive and evil of all the idols our pitiful, idolotrous species has created.

So I plan to make my weekend posts all on a Memorial Day theme.

This is the best time of the day, the dawn,
The final cleansing breath unsullied yet by acrid fume
Or death's cacophany, the rank refuse of unchained ambition

And, pray, deny me not, but know me now
Your faithful retainer stands resolute to serve his liege lord
Without recompense, perchance to fail and perish namelessly
No flag-draped bier or muffled drum
To set the cadence for a final dress parade

But it was not always thus, remember?
Once you worshipped me and named me a god
In many tongues and made offering
Lest I exact too terrible a tribute
                                      - Steve Earle, "Warrior"

I've seen Mark Twain's "War Prayer" quoted on occasion.  But usually just the prayer part.  It was actually part of a 1905 short story, in which a congregation is gathered in a church to pray for victory in some unnamed war.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

But an old man showed up after the minister made a long prayer, which was proceeded by a hymn invoking "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest/Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

The old man was not so timid as the war critics who crept away earlier in the service.  He tells the congregation: "You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient.  The whole of the uttered prayer is compacted in to those pregnant words."  And he proceeds to extend the prayer to include the parts unstated by the minister who called for God to grant victory to Our Side:

"O Lord, our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them!  With them  - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord, our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sport of the sun-flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

[After a pause.} "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak!—The messenger of the Most High waits."

It was believed afterwards, that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.