First World War (WWI)

The idea of a culture war is not new.

The Christmas truce provides hope that there is a peace beyond the ugliness of warfare and sorrow.

WASPs tended to identify themselves as uniquely positioned guardians of the nation’s heritage. As their cultural influence had begun waning by World War I, their spokesmen resorted with greater ferocity to a crusading mindset to bolster their influence.

The Catholic tradition reminds us that just war thinking is critical to peacemaking.

What we can gain from the origins of the Great War is that strategic ambiguity played a role in bringing on that cataclysm.

What would President Roosevelt say of President Joe Biden and his Democratic administration abandoning the Afghan people? Perhaps Biden, and many in the West, have turned away from winning because they have lost a sense that victory, even an unsatisfying partial victory, is politically and morally viable.

My rescued father revered Lincoln. “With malice toward none but with charity for all” was Lincoln’s Farewell Address to us. Leslie Morrison lived out Father Abraham’s good words. On Father’s Day, and every day, we can so live, too.

Browsing among the books, articles, and editorials of the past is instructive and exceedingly disturbing. One discovers the same concerns and anxieties as is everywhere apparent among thoughtful people now. Many paragraphs or sentences are as applicable today as they were then.

Memorial Day should remind us of a debt that we, as citizens, owe to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and it is a call to action to appropriately honor those who have served in the armed forces.