Memorial Day: Heroism and Our Common Humanity

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” Joseph Campbell, American writer, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces

"It is our suffering that brings us together." - Ursula K. Le Guin, American writer

Forgive me, dear readers, for wanting to offer to you a slightly altered piece I wrote a couple of years ago. It still resonates with me.

Memorial Day is about remembering. We go to the two cemeteries near us where our relatives are buried. We send articles back and forth about some of our ancestors. We tell stories. We especially like stories of heroism - when someone sacrifices themselves for the good of others.

We, humans, are elevated to the point of tears by heroism. People who will lay down their lives for others or for a great cause. It touches us way down deep.

But here’s a little-known secret which our military generals, but few others, are privy to. Though we humans love heroes, we do not like to kill others. As far as I'm concerned that is something to celebrate as we remember those who have sacrificed their lives.

Research from the pre-Vietnam era, which some would rather keep under wraps, uncovered that out of every hundred men along the lines of fire during a combat period, only 15 or 20 would actually fire their weapons at the enemy. No matter how long the period of engagement.

They weren’t running away. Many times, they helped in other ways. Risking danger while rescuing others.

Military psychologists have tried to understand what is happening in these situations. What they came up with is this. “Within most people there is an intense resistance to killing other people. A resistance so strong that, in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it.”

A French military officer was one of the first to document the “common tendency of soldiers to fire harmlessly into the air” rather than fire at their enemy.

Again, more recent studies conclude that it is not about battlefield fear. It is about an “unwillingness to take part in combat.”

Let me take a little side trip here.

At Christmas our local little music theatre presented Christmas in the Trenches. To give a little background...As most of us know, The Christmas Truce was a series of unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front during the First World War. The performance was a musical based on a true story of one such little truce.

The production starts with young men full of enthusiasm, eager to get in the action, to fight. Then the reality of what fighting means set in. They experience the horror of their predicament.

And…then, a truce. Why? Well, it's Christmas and peace-on-earth sort of thoughts roll around. It begins with a German soldier singing a carol from inside a trench.

The British respond with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Then the Germans start singing “Stille Nacht.” And the British join in singing the counterpart in English – “Silent Night.”

The men start coming out of their trenches. Exchanging gifts. Smiling and laughing together. One finds a Christmas tree. It all goes well until an officer finds out what’s happening. The killing sadly resumes.

The young couple sitting next to John and me in the little theatre stared dumbfounded. After the show, they turned to us in amazement. “Could this have really happened?” they asked.

We assured them it was based on a true story (there is a book called Christmas In the Trenches which outlines many of these same sorts of true war stories. I don’t recommend the book simply because the print is small and hard to read. But the children’s version is readable.)

From what we know now, it appears that throughout history when the “moment of truth” came, many soldiers could not kill each other.

If you’d like to know more about the whole thing, look at the book War on the Mind. So very apropos while we still are in a month dedicated to mental health awareness.

Some people did pay attention to this killing aversion. The military leaders realized that they needed to conjure up contempt for the enemy. Figure out some way to de-sensitize the soldiers. Glorify killing…which was almost unheard of in early combat situations.

And they figured it out. They became more successful at getting soldiers to shoot at each other. But it all came with a cost - this ability to pull the trigger on another human. When our natural safeguards against killing are overridden, severe trauma can result. In Vietnam where 95 percent of soldiers DID fire their weapons, it’s estimated that between 18 and 54 percent of the 2.8 million military suffered from PTSD. Far greater than any previous war.

What does that mean for these men suffering from PTSD? It means higher incidence of divorce, use of alcohol and drugs, heart disease, ulcers, and loss of jobs. Depression, anxiety, and suicide are not uncommon (Though my brother was never officially diagnosed as suffering from PTSD, I do believe he had it. I can't totally blame it all on his Vietnam experience, but I can safely say it greatly exacerbated his problems. His life did end in suicide).

I’m not saying that PTSD cannot be treated or that it is inevitable, but rather making a point that killing people is not what we humans generally enjoy doing. What we want to do is be noble and courageous and heroic. And on this Memorial Day we can congratulate ourselves on being human!

Memorial Day is a day to remember that we want to dedicate ourselves to something great. Killing is against our nature as humans. When we are traumatized, we must bring ourselves back to ourselves.

And I’m reminded of a story about an early gathering to remember those who had died in the Civil War.

On this particular day in April, 1866, before the war had even officially ended, the Southern women of Columbus, Mississippi went about throwing flowers on the Confederate graves of their dead sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins who had been killed in the Battle of Shiloh. They mourned.

Then…they looked over at the “lonely” graves of the Union boys buried not too far away in a separate part of the cemetery. They couldn't stand looking at the untended graves. The women went over and scattered some of their flowers there too on the Union boys' graves. That act spurred others on. The act become more wide-spread. Some believe it is what helped to cause eventual reconciliation. That early recognition of our shared suffering.

That just gives me chills. The moment when we get it - that we are all in the same boat. That we all suffer, that we all hurt, that we all long for our children, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers to live good, long lives. This is the story I think we should talk about every Memorial Day - the story we should remember above all.

Eventually over time the day has become one of remembering all those who lost their lives.

This weekend, take a couple of moments to watch, listen, and remember https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfe4TxvUOiw  

How might we continue to journey together to the Good Life by finding ways to be courageous, heroic…committing ourselves to great causes, honoring those before us, and holding on to our common humanity as best we can?