Memorial Day is an opportunity to reflect on the debt that the many owe to the few. Wars must sometimes be fought to defend the innocent, restore justice, and punish evil. When wars are fought, those who fight them sometimes fall. We must remember them.

David Ben-Gurion, who declared the establishment of the State of Israel 70 years ago this week, once mused that “God left one commandment out of the Bible. Perhaps the Almighty delivered this commandment to Moses, but Moses forgot to bring it down from the mountain. That commandment is No. 11: ‘Be strong.'”

Christian theo-political witness has always contended that political responsibility cannot be had by seeking either greatness or goodness absent the other.

Christ’s sacrifice helps us to reflect on Divine glory and individual and national vocations.

Force is always only the form love takes against terrible evil in the last resort when nothing else will protect the innocent, restore justice, and bring about the conditions for peace. The old Chestertonian nugget remains: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

While the triumphal procession of Christ into Jerusalem marked the beginning of the end of the problem of Sin for eternity, it didn’t quite attend to the problem of human evil in history. But God’s grace has a plan to partially address that too. And he gave us a sword to help carry it out.

My Lai is rightly associated with disgrace, abhorrence, and sorrow. But because of the actions of a few brave men who stood against their own, My Lai ought also to be associated with courage, decency, and love.

Clint Eastwood’s film about the incredible acts of heroism performed by Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos largely fails as a cinematic experience. But the story he tells remains an extraordinary tale about courage and God’s leading.

They were the first boots on the ground in the War on Terror. Their footprints were horse hooves.