Soldiers Put Politics Aside In Service

Memorial Day Remembers Servicemen Of Past, Present And Future

(National Review Online)  This column was written by National Review's W. Thomas Smith Jr.

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Buried beneath a stretch of ground on a ridge above the Broad River here in Columbia, S.C., are the remains of some 140 Confederate soldiers. Though some are in unmarked graves, most are beneath neat rows of small, white tombstones. At the entrance to this relatively small section of the much larger Elmwood Cemetery is a large, wrought-iron archway that simply says, "Confederate Soldiers 1861-1865."

Nearby are ten Union Army graves — at least eight of them being soldiers of the U.S. 8th Infantry Regiment — who died during the postwar occupation of Columbia.

The Union and Confederate graves are separated by an old stone wall — the wall itself something of an unofficial monument, built to divide, thus symbolizing the simmering distrust that existed between the two regions of the country for decades after the war ended in 1865.

Beyond these two sets of graves are interred thousands of other soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines (including many more Civil War veterans and countless descendents of those Civil War veterans) from different times and future wars.

My father, a Korean War veteran, is one of them.

Point being: no matter what flags Americans have served under — or causes they have fought for — since initially choosing between the colonies and the Crown back in 1775, all are indeed Americans.

And most of them have fought less over the politics of a given conflict and more from the sheer fact that they were the ones responsible for defending the homeland or its interests abroad when politics and diplomacy had broken down.

As Lord Tennyson wrote:

Theirs not to make reply...
Theirs not to reason why...
Theirs but to do and die...

One of the oft-told stories of the American Civil War is one in which a U.S. Army officer asks a young Confederate soldier, who had just been taken prisoner by Union forces, if he (the Confederate) owned slaves. When the prisoner said no, the officer asked why he was fighting on the side of the rebellion. The Confederate matter-of-factly responded, "Because you're here."

Sounds simple, but for the Confederate soldier, taking up arms against the enemy had nothing really to do with politics or such lofty mid-19th-century issues as slavery and its abolition. It had everything to do with the fact that his country had been attacked. And if his fellow countrymen were going to shoulder weapons and march against the enemy, how could he not?

After all, as U.S. Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur said in 1815, nearly a half-century before the Civil War: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!"

Remembering Those, Right Or Wrong

We remember those soldiers and sailors — right or wrong — in various annual observances, from Veterans Day to Armed Forces Day. This week, we remember the dead. We’ve done so since the end of our Civil War, when annual observances began cropping up in communities across the nation. The earliest observances specifically honored those Civil War soldiers, sailors, and Marines who were killed in action or, just as likely, died of wounds or disease (most of those buried here on the ridge over the Broad River died in the nearby Confederate hospital).

Which brings us to U.S. Army Gen. John A. Logan, the man who — under the command of Gen. William T. Sherman — led an invading force into Columbia, and who has since been blamed in part for this city's burning on February 17, 1865. In what seems ironic to many South Carolinians, it was Logan who issued an order dated May 5, 1868, for the setting aside of a special day each year to honor the war’s dead. The order officially established what was to become Memorial Day — in those days known as "Decoration Day." It read in part:

The 30th day of May 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

So the man partially responsible for torching this old Confederate city, is also responsible for the flowers placed on Confederate graves every spring. Not surprisingly, white Southerners haven't always been too keen on the idea of honoring their dead on a day set aside by Logan. And separate annual Confederate Memorial Days — observed on varying days in April, May, and June (as well as a Texas Confederate Heroes Day in January) — have been observed ever since Logan’s order was issued.

The Evolution Of Memorial Day

"Memorial Days began very soon after the war, and concurrently by both Northern and Southern groups," Joe Long, curator of education at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, tells National Review Online. "There's a book entitled 'Race and Reunion' that claims that the very first Memorial Day service was held by black Americans in honor of Union soldiers."

Long adds that Northern and Southern observances were organized by ladies’ memorial associations. "Those early memorial services were very much driven by women."

A few weeks after Logan's order, Gen. James A. Garfield (future president of the United States) presided over the first Decoration Day at Arlington National Cemetery (the former estate of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee), and approximately 5,000 participants decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate dead — about 20,000 of them — buried on the grounds.

Over the next 20-plus years, communities nationwide held Decoration (Memorial) Day observances. And by the end of World War I in 1918, annual services were held to honor the dead from all of America’s wars.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the birthplace of Memorial Day after it was determined Waterloo held the first such service in 1866, one year after the end of the Civil War.

In 1971, Memorial Day became a congressionally mandated national holiday.

Arlington National Cemetery continues to hold the largest annual Memorial Day service. Flags are placed at each of the nearly 300,000 graves. Presidential speeches are made. And a wreath is placed at the Tomb of the Unknowns (also called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier).

As for me, I'll do what I’ve done on previous Memorial Days: I’ll spend part of the morning strolling among the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers on this ridge here above the Broad River. I’ll think about their efforts. I'll consider how much they struggled on both sides. I’ll try to imagine what it must have looked like from this very ridge-top on that single night in February 1865 as my city burned, the Confederacy collapsed around my great, great grandparents, and what would become the world's most powerful "nation for good" was saved by those who were willing to risk death to save it.

[texmexborderswimmer]

To bluestardad every post you spout the same dribble either find something interesting to post or just ****.

[johngorrind]

It's the Universal Soldier
He really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from you
They come from me
And brother can't you see
This is not the way to put an end to war

[Razzl]

It would be a lot easier to accord you the dignity you seem to want to for your father and other war victims if you yourself didn't go politicizing this moment with your headline. There are plenty of ironies here, like your not being able to see that Korea was one of a long string of wars which were wrongly and wastefully undertaken by leaders who "allowed politics and diplomacy to break down". The Civil War, of course, was a crusade to end the evil of slavery when Southern men of the same mindset as today's NRO writers had constructed in their minds an airtight legal, economic, and social box permitting them to ignore the serious evil.

Even more ironic is to quote Tennyson's lines about it being the British soldiers' "not to reason why"; the American Republic and its citizen soldiery were designed by Jefferson to liberate the American from the unthinking servitude of the European and put the citizen squarely in charge of all decisions, including who is the enemy and whether it is appropriate to send anyone to "do or die" against them.

I won't pick any more on Mr. Smith, since he has grief enough to bear for the moment, but will say, since Jefferson both obligated and freed us to say so, that unthinking service to a corrupt leader and committing evil in his name is not patriotism, and that war as an instrument of policy is itself an evil that this citizenry needs to keep fighting against the evil ones who always have an army of the unthinking at their disposal...

[mcvet]

It simply amazes me, after all this time, that some still try and justify the conduct of the leaders of the Southern States who were so greedy that they started a civil war rather than pay men for doing work. These low life Southern Fascist can spin it all they want and try as best they can to justify what happened but in the end the EXACT same garbage happened then as is happening today with a Southern Fascist Leader. These poor simple minded farmers were LIED to BIG TIME so they would fight to protect "States Rights". Exactly what "Rights" were they fighting to protect? Yep, the right to keep and own SLAVES! Now you can paint it anyway you want it but it still comes out the exact same way. Want proof? What simbol does EVERY Racist Organization on the planet use besides the Swastika? You got it, the CONFEDERATE BATTLE FLAG. Nothing more needs to be said. Sieg Heil Y'all.

[bluestardad]

WE HAVE BEEN DRAWN INTO IRAQ OUTSIDE AMERICAN NATIONAL INTEREST! BETRAYED BY THOSE WHO HAVE SWORN TO REPRESENT US!

This can be proven and America can and should arrest Bush and Cheney their Entire Administration, Israeli NEOCONS TOO, and put them on trial for War Crimes just like we did the Nazis after WWII.


CHECK OUT THOSE REPRESENTATIVES THAT VOTE FOR THE WAR! If you follow the money trail you will find that most of those elected officials who support the war in Iraq are under the influence of AIPAC. AN ISRAELI POLITICAL LOBBY GROUP!

HERE ARE SOME OF AIPAC DEMOCRATIC SUPPORTERS! CONTACT THEM!

Levin, Carl- (D - MI)
269 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
[phone]
Web Form: levin.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Steny Hoyer
http://hoyer.house.gov/contact/


READ AIPAC BRAG ABOUT THEIR INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN POLITICIANS!

http://www.aipac.org/forms/join_aipacClubs.htm

REMEMBER THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE IS RUN BY PRO ISRAELI GROUP! THEY ARE THE ONES WHO CAME UP WITH THIS SURGE IDEA!

EVEN AS AMERICAN MILITARY AID LANDS IN LEBANON, President Bush is funding Al Qaeda in Lebanon with funds from Iraq! http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/ar
ticles/070305fa_fact_hersh

50 years of American involvement in the Middle East ENOUGH it has nothing worth one more American Life!

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY STANDS IN NEW YORK HARBOR AND IS NOT KNEELING IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

[socrates392]

"Sounds simple, but for the Confederate soldier, taking up arms against the enemy had nothing really to do with politics or such lofty mid-19th-century issues as slavery and its abolition. It had everything to do with the fact that his country had been attacked."

I find this bit about the confederate soldier deeply disturbing. Are we supposed to honor this soldier because he had no real philosophical or moral justification for his actions? He took up arms against his brothers simply because they were "there"?! I'm a little confused. Are we really supposed to laud that?

Also, isn't it strange that Smith says that the confederate soldier fought because his "country" was attacked. Doesn't he mean his state? He technically betrayed his country when he took up arms against the federal government. I'm not bringing this up becuase I want to refight the civil war. ***I have nothing against southerners!*** I simply don't understand how this anecdote contirbutes to Smith's overall message. It seems in fact to encourage blind obedience to the state, even when your state supports human bondage and is rebelling against the federal government.

I wish the NRO would have picked a more eloquent writer to author this piece. Vets indeed deserve our respect, but it's not because of their blind obediance to the government! Quite the opposite, it is because of the many, many emminetly self-conscious sacrifices they have made on behalf of our freedom. Thank you, vets!

[feelfree1]

Correction:

Should read: 'our Constitution'

[feelfree1]

'Soldiers Put Politics Aside In Service'

Fine with me, as long as they don't put the Constitution aside. These soldiers are in a difficult position.

If they do not resist cooperation with the illegal war of aggression being waged by the illegitimate Bush regime, then they are in violation of their sworn oath to defend and protect our contitution.

If they decide to cooperate with the Bush regime, they will have to live with being a pawn in Bush regime war crimes.

May they choose wisely, and may they one day return home to assist the rest of us in reclaiming our government from the deadly pirates that have assumed control.

www.ivaw.org

www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow

[idlepugilist]

It's not often the NRO fails to put out trash, but this may be one of those articles.
Hail to our soldiers. Hail to their sacrifices. Hail to their committment and brotherhood. May the Commander In Chief see these brave soldiers as people with real families. Republicans serve alongside Democrats alongside all parties. There is no party affiliation to patriotism.
May the NRO and the Current Occupants of the White House clearly remember that.

[johnshaft4]

Anyone wo would knowingly risk get maimed or killed for this charade occupation staged on behalf of Halliburton and Israel is insane.
There is no valor in dying for lies...

[middleman8]

"Because you are here"

That explains present Iraq perfect. Thats why the Iraqies will die before being supressed by a forigen country. Would'you?