Veterans

How a military works to rebuild itself, and how to find value in service to an ungrateful nation are evergreen lessons of Atkinson’s novel.

Seventy-five years ago, the Samuel Goldwyn masterpiece “The Best Years of Our Lives” premiered to universal critical and popular acclaim. Reviewing the film now, two overarching contrasts between past and present are clear.

Can other churches use hail and farewell events to welcome military families better, educate civilians about military life, and show how servicemembers serve the church?

From my perspective the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick production of “The Vietnam War” had but one objective: to reinforce the standard anti-war narrative that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, illegal, immoral, and ineptly conducted by the allies from start to finish.

Isolation may be impractical, but its appeal is very understandable. In this article, originally published on June 14, 1943, in Christianity and Crisis, Charles Gilkey presents six influences upon this school of thought, and emphasizes the importance of giving primacy to the opinion of returning veterans in defining future U.S. foreign policy.

President George W. Bush’s Portraits of Courage can help the nation, and especially the Church, better understand wounded warriors.

Much has been written on the types of “woundedness” warriors suffer in combat, including physical, mental, emotional, and even moral injury. However, the U.S. has failed to explore a warrior’s spiritual injury in combat and its debilitating, life-long effects (including for a warrior’s family).

It was a day, in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, when “the pride of our nation” began a battle…

It is not “the military” nor “the government” that will be primarily responsible for the production of knights – of just warriors. Rather, it is, above all, the family, and, secondarily, our places of worship, our schools, our civic institutions – all those relational associations that fill the space between the individual and the state and make up civil society. Impeding this, and lurking in the background of this project, is the civil-military relations of our land.