America’s War Dead

We are each diminished by the death of any of our military personnel. Abhorrence for war, which we all share, has led some to become critical of what many feel is an essential military struggle against terrorism. We don’t want it but it won’t go away by itself.

Our grievous casualties were put into perspective for me by research done by a friend, Pat Adams.

Since the beginning of the Afghanistan War (10/01) there have been 295 US Military casualties.

Since the beginning of the Iraq War (3/19/03) there have been over 2,500 US Military deaths.

That totals more that 2,795 reasons to sorrow.

However, contrast that with what we have grown to tolerate in the United States.

From 2003 to 2005, drunk driving deaths in the US totaled 50,771.

During that same period the murders in New York City and Los Angeles totaled 3,184.

The total number of murders in America in those years was 49,577.

A breakdown shows an American Military member would be 1.3 times more likely to be killed walking the streets of New York or Los Angeles than patrolling a street in Iraq or Afghanistan.

A member of our military would be 18.2 times more likely to be killed driving on the streets in the United States than driving on the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan.

A member of our military is 17.7 times more likely to be murdered inside the United States than killed inside the boundaries of Iraq or Afghanistan.

This is no attempt to rationalize or minimize the war deaths. It does put into perspective the dramatic deaths tolerated in America.

A Palestinian youth in Israel being aware of the murder climate in New York asked me why our military doesn’t invade New York and establish peace there before going to Iraq. That is the mentality among many in the Arab world.

The Nazi invasion of the neighbors of Germany inevitably started World War II. What is now happening globally is the precursor to World War III.

Not all of the one billion Muslims are committed to this war. Many prefer peace. However, it is estimated there are over 5,000,000 radicals jihadists aligned against us. Scores of these want to be martyred in our destruction. They are anxious to die for Islam in a fight against those of us they consider infidels. Islam can win this war. That is not to say they will prevail militarily.

There is another hopeful outcome in which Islam prevails. In a different era when Islam was engaged in world conquest a rational element within realized their blood lust was not good for their countries. This rational element cooled their ambitions of conquest and aggression ceased. Such an element in the Muslim world needs to be encouraged. It is there. Let’s hope they win.

How Little Can A Person Be

Who is the smallest person you have ever known? I don’t mean small like the littlest man in the Bible. It wasn’t Nehemiah (Knee-high-miah) or the Bildad the Shuhite (Shoe-height). It was the Roman soldier who slept on his watch. Now that is small.

Not that kind of small. The reference is to a person who is insecure, one who has an inferior complex which results in trying to build up self by tearing others down. That never has worked. Lincoln said, “You can’t gain ground by slinging mud.”

A little person works insidiously to destroy the reputation and even institutions, programs, fountains, and facilities in general associated with a predecessor. Such a person is preoccupied not with filling the shoes of one who went before but burying them. This often results in the person being so consumed by this passion all other decisions are influenced by it. The past is to be forgotten and those associated with it diminished.

Such a person fails to realize they are building their own negative legacy as a little envious person. They begrudge the success of the past and resent persons associated with it. They hope to make themselves look better by making others look bad.

I learned of such a person on a recent trip to Egypt. The queenly Hatshepsut ruled Egypt as Pharaoh. Her son and successor Tutmose III worked with a passion to have all indication of her life and work eradicated. He even had her name removed form the list of rulers. All monuments to her were defaced; tributes were destroyed. On occasion Tutmose III would have sculptors chisel off her face from statues and have his replace it. He had a problem and it wasn’t Hatshepsut.

During her reign she had the support of the leaders in Thebes and the populace throughout the land, took full royal titulary, and ruled for twenty years as pharaoh. Yet, only faint reminders of her success and image remain. Were it not for her stunningly beautiful mortuary terrace temple at Deir el-Bahri there would be little remaining evidence of her rule. She was one of three leaders who develop the new Egypt but the efforts of her successor virtually removed all evidence of her life and work.

It is the centuries old effort to eradicate her accomplishments that has resulted in a contemporary effort to redeem her record and give her the place deserved on history’s horizon. More and more efforts are being made to confirm her deeds. Such efforts reveal Tutmose III as a little man. Any persons disposed to his conduct align themselves with the little people of this world.

Over an entrance to Westminster Abby is this inscription: “The workman dies, but the work lives on.” That is especially true in the spiritual realm. Solomon described the permanent record of their work in these words: “Whatever God does, it shall be forever, nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

Little people decry what God won’t deny. In the mean time fluff up that pillow on the watch.

Thomas Jefferson & Religion

In Philadelphia on a hot summer day in 1776 five men met in a stuffy room over a stable plagued by horseflies. What they wrote was published July 2, but dated July 4. Fifty-six signatures were affixed later. That document is revered as our Declaration of Independence. With those signatures the channel of history now had a new tributary.

Reflect on one of those five men, Thomas Jefferson. I have an old volume entitled “Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United Sates,” first published in 1864. This was before revisionist historians began to rewrite and misrepresent events about Jefferson and his day. Many have been led to believe he was hostile to Christianity.

He believed that God was very involved in the proclamation written above that stable and that He had much to do with the nation resulting. In his first message as President he said, “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

This summary of Jefferson appeared in the “National Magazine” as noted in the 1864 volume herein referenced. “Never were a man’s religious sentiments more grossly misrepresented than Jefferson’s. He was not an atheist. He believed in God the Creator of all things, in his overruling providence, infinite wisdom, goodness, justice, and mercy. He believed that God hears and answers prayer, and that human trust in Him is never misplaced nor disregarded. He believed in a future sate of rewards and punishments. He believed in the Bible precepts and moralities. No man in Washington ever gave so much to build so many churches as Jefferson. He never wrote, for public eye, one word against Christianity.”

Records show he attended church regularly always carrying with him his prayer book. He joined in the responses and prayers of the congregation. He ordered Bibles to be used as textbooks in the public schools of Washington.

His design for the University of Virginia contained a seminary. He invited all denominations to build seminaries around the University so all could have the literary advantages of the school.

As we celebrate our Declaration of Independence reflect on these Jefferson’s words of dependence from his first message as President.

“I shall need the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with providence, and our riper years with his wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their counsels, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do shall result in your good….”

Quotes Worth Remembering

The wisdom of others condensed in succinct thought is worth incorporating in our memory bank. There are many compact concepts worth putting on the marque of our mind. Some I like I don’t know the source but respect their laconic insights. Here are a few.

“Your lack of proper prior planning does not constitute my emergency.”

That is a good one to share with friends who fail to prepare and then pressure you to produce at the last moment.

“Never say of a thing I have lost it only that I have given it back.” The Greek Epicitus is credited with that.

There is a Christian version of that regarding the death of a friend, “A thing isn’t lost if you know where it is.”

“Activity generates inspiration but inspiration doesn’t always generate activity.”

A lot of people are inspired but never act. That bring to mind this one.

“Commitment is the capacity to carry out the intent of a decision long after the emotion that inspired it has faded.”

“Fulfillment often comes not from doing a thing but from having done it.”

That is a way of saying the challenge in accomplishing a thing may it itself be demanding and depleting but having done it there if fulfilment for a lifetime. That is incentive for keeping on keeping on.

“Even across the divide of death friendship remains an echo forever in the heart.” That is by Mississippi author Willie Moris.

Not a quote but a word I like is eudemonia meaning happiness. Eudemonics is the science of happiness. It is related to Aristotelian philosophy regarding happiness based on an active life governed by reason.

As a result of that thought consider this. “Happiness is a beautiful byproduct resulting from a job well done.”

Folks strive for happiness in extreme ways and in all the wrong places. In those elementary words is the formula for experiencing it.

Not one of my favorite thinkers, Friedrich Nietzsche, made this which is one of my favorite quotes. “The essential thing “in heaven and earth’ is…that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.”

In summary keep on keeping on, stay the course.

Here is a pressure relief valve.

“God doesn’t expect us to be THE best at anything but He does expect us to be OUR best at everything we do.”

Zig Ziglar, a dear friend, is one of America’s most outstanding motivational speakers. He once told me he never quotes Scripture but he never shares a motivational concept that isn’t scriptural. None of these quotes are Scripture but they are all scriptural.

Now here is one that is Scripture verse that doesn’t sound like scripture. Solomon wisely wrote: “Confidence in an unfaithful man is time of trouble is like a bad tooth and a foot out of joint” (Proverbs 25:19).

What Is Jihad?

There is no war on terror. There can’t be. Terror is an abstract. During World War II, or as my Cajun friends call it World War Two Eye, no one made reference to a war on blitzkrieg.

Blitzkrieg was a form of combat used by the Nazis. The allies were up front in acknowledging it was a war against the Nazis. We did not engage in a war against Kamikazes. Blitzkrieg and kamikazes were forms of engagement used by the Germans and Japanese. Everyone knew we were at war with the Germans and Japanese.

Why then are we so reluctant to admit we are not engaged in a war against terrorism. Terrorism is the technique used in this conflict. It is a war gains terrorist known as Islamic jihadist. Let me rush to acknowledge not all Muslims are of this school of thought and behavior. However, within Islam jihadist go all the way back to Muhammad.

While acknowledging and defending the non-jihadist Muslims against unfair grouping with this element within Islam let’s not fail to realize the element always has been there. Having established that let’s admit we are not engaged in a war against terrorism but a war against radical Islamic jihadists.

Jihad means a holy war. The “war verses” of the Koran advocate it along with dhimmitude which is the relegation of non-Muslims to an inferior status under Islam.

I can’t say it often enough not all Muslims are committed to this school of thought. However, until we admit a significant number are we will continue to speak of fighting an abstract enemy; a war on terrorism. Terrorism is their current form of warfare. Those who advocate this form of conflict are the true opponents in the war. It is a war against extreme Islamic jihadists.

We haven’t caught on yet. At the insistence of Wahabi clerics we have opened Islamic centers at Quantico and other military bases where the “war verses” of the Koran are taught. These are the verses used by jihadists as their “manual of war” which legitimize terror.

Jihad means a holy war. Al Qaeda members believe with all their hearts they are doing as bidden by Alla as stated in the Koran. To them it is a religious war designed to annulate infidels and establish Islam in Dar El Harb, “the house of war,” non-Islamic nations.

This segment of Islam has historically manifested itself several times. The bloody drive across Africa and Eastern Europe was a manifestation of this. The way this bloodbath was stopped then is the only way it can be stopped now.

A significant segment in the Muslim world realized such aggression was wrong and hurtful. A representative group of responsible Muslim leaders emerged who believed the sword was not the answer. They quelled the slaughter.

We are not engaged in a war on terror or a war on Islam. We are at war to defend ourselves against extreme Islamic jihadist.