Services
at the Washington National Cathedral
for the Dedication of the World War II Memorial
Conviction,
National Cathedral, 24 May 2004
That was a bracing story which we just heard from the Old
Testament; everyone knows the story of David and Goliath.
Its essence is the simple and innocent tale of facing the
impossible. If you read the intervening verses we left out,
I Samuel 17: 38-40, you will learn how Saul tries to dress
David up in his armor. The attempt has high expectations but
doesn’t work and the silly exercise is abandoned. This
early scene before facing the giant seems to hold in abeyance
a better preparedness—not found in armor and weaponry—but
in the character underwritten by God. The costuming for war
is as May Sarton writes, a process meant to “wring out”
the warrior.
As we read of David’s ill-fitting preparation we are
implicitly asked not to rely on earthly power of this kind;
there will be some other asset in store for us. It will be
a capacity to see the connectivity of all things, as God does,
to see the greater power through wise, “quiet eyes.”
This generation was called into service and soon fell back
on the founding values of this nation. The consistent and
patient application of value by the greatest generation, indeed,
won World War II.
It is God's way to bring us to dress up here with David and
the ceremony that all who go to battle endure. We see how
innocent and dependent we are. In countless boot camps, in
countless places, uncertainty steps back as the apparel of
conviction replaces hesitant, familiar clothes.
As many new warriors before them the veterans I interviewed
about their days before going overseas drew their supplies
and their government issue. Charles stood there at the in-processing
station; freshly arrived for basic training, the equipment
in some instances hadn't changed that much from the World
War before it. Truth be told his web gear and even his rucksack
had been to an earlier war. It would be replaced before departing
for overseas. He thought at the time, however, and under other
circumstances, he would have appreciated Uncle Sam's recycling
thrift a little more.
When he got to the barracks he tried everything on. It was
an ungainly exercise and nothing like wearing battle gear
later after combat had weathered him. Everything would fit
better then, as a matter of fact, it would also be that the
world looked different then too. As Howard Thurman would say,
and as Sharon Salzberg noted, he looked with quiet eyes at
a world distressed, disabled and disheartened, yet seamless
and without separation. (133, Salzberg)
In the units, among shipmates, and platoons the inner patterns
of connection that make up our inner life seemed more accessible.
They wouldn’t say it then but it didn’t keep it
from becoming so. Ironically less innocent conviction would
accompany these men and women as the war progressed. Conviction
gave way to insight. I've heard that from Navy veterans when
far out at sea and pulling a watch over a monotonous, moonless
North Atlantic that where forthright conviction was, now co-existed
missing loved ones and worries about the future. The flak
jacket fit better, though.
Conviction could be played with as you arranged and re-arranged
your gear. Your fingers nervously played over the straps and
reverse buckles that our military favors. “As we left
England and crossed the Channel I thought of how I got here,
and then all hell broke loose when the landing craft lurched
and hit the bottom. We had landed.” said a veteran of
Utah Beach, Normandy.
Conviction doesn’t rise in most of our lives with flourish
but comes from something that has surrounded and supported
us. For Americans facing World War II it initially came from
outrage. Jack Vier quit his job and enlisted he was so angry.
September 11th, some say, brought a similar feeling.
But this was 1941, Hitler had been developing a war machine
under the veil national socialism for over a decade. It was
a time of the advent of new militaristic governments. In Japan
some opposed western values in the name of Shintosim and Confucianism
while others urged an authoritarian government free form parliamentary
restraint and undue tradition. This culminated in an aggressive
solution to buffer Korea, a colony of Japan by invading Manchuria,
China in 1931. The Nazi state in Germany was a radically new
kind of regime. Hitler attacked competing sources of power
abolishing trade unions and opposition political parties.
Attacks on Jews and others escalated into what Hitler called
the “final solution” as millions were herded into
concentration camps. Nazism meant the construction of a war
machine; the essence of the state was authority and the function
of the state was war. This was a visual blur and not the occasion
for quiet, wiser evaluation.
Reflective democracies have always resisted the certainty
other States intend for their policies. Conviction rises out
of a determination to do the right thing. Conviction borrows
on a certainty about the way things are. It is truth of inner
connection which we lament at losing in these days. After
years of isolation America entered a world community. On the
human level our military men and women left cities and towns.
Many had never ventured out of the boundary of their own county.
This was a real part of the World War II story. The quiet
eyes I speak of come from a more sophisticated view which
takes conviction to its place of testing, enlargement and
enduring gift to us now
I think all of our patterns of life, particularly our romances,
our attitudes toward objects, our attitudes toward the future,
our attitude toward education, all had to do with the war.
I cannot imagine a day that I spent from the time I was 14
until I was 19, that I wasn’t aware of the war for a
good part of the day, and it had an impact on everything that
I chose to do. There was no point at which, except being asleep,
that I wasn’t aware of the war because I had a great
number of friends who died.
In these days of meditation we will survey conviction, fear,
courage and faith. We will wonder together about their relationship
one to the other when faced by monumental challenge. And I’ll
bet we will marvel at an American spirit born of vision visited
by wisdom. This wise vision was not without a price.
“It was more than the stubble of beard that told the
story; it was the blank, staring eyes. The men were so tired
that it was a living death. They had come from such a depth
of weariness that I wondered if they would quite be able to
make the return to the lives and thoughts they had known.”—a
survivor of the 34th Division, Italian Campaign at the Gustav
line.
For now we only see the optimism of conviction in future
days we will visit the consequences of such commitments and
see how a destiny was set for us all. +gep
We thank you Lord for the days and preparation of conviction.
In their approximations we stride gallantly forward confidant
in you and in ourselves. How loving and patient you are with
us, O Lord, for it is in your time and upon your terrain of
life that we come to know wisdom born of suffering and sacrifice,
gaining the quiet eyes of insight that sees the greater plan
you have for all. May the freshness of our convictions last
only by your grace. Amen.
References:
The Power of Your Words, Walking with God by Agreeing
with God
by Don Gossett & E.W. Kenyon
© by Kenyon Gospel Publishing Society, Inc.
book available through: www.whitakerhouse.com
ISBN: 0-88368-348-2
Why Courage Matters, The Way to a Braver Life
by John McCain with Mark Salter
Random House
ISBN: 1-4000-6030-3
Faith, Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
by Sharon Salzberg
Riverhead
Books, Published by the Berkeley Publishing Group, A division
of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 1-57322-340-9
Medal of Honor, Profiles of America's Military Heroes from
the Civil War to the Present
by Allen Mikaelian, with commentary by Mike Wallace
Hyperion Books
ISBN: 0-7868-6662-4
Office
of the Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies