Veterans Day 2013
11/11/13 04:40
The scale of the devastation left by Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines is so massive that it is difficult to just take it in. Officials estimate that 10,000 people have died in Tacloban city and elsewhere. The number of homeless people is in the hundreds of thousands. People are desperate for water and food and shelter. Rescue workers can’t get to those in need because of blocked roads and destroyed airports. More than 9 million people have been directly affected in the Philippines.
And the storm didn’t stop after ravaging the islands. The storm made landfall in North Vietnam, near the Chinese border as a tropical storm.
Six islands in the central Philippines bore the brunt of the storm. Buildings are flattened. In the coastal areas it wasn’t the wind that destroyed the buildings, but the water. The storm surge was as high as 45 feet in some places. Some cities, such as Baco, in Oriental Mindoro was 80% underwater. The city was home to 35,000 people.
You don’t have to go far to read about the devastation. I don’t think I can watch another video of a reporter walking through a field of rubble trying to describe the stench of human bodies without anyone to bury them, no one to attend to them.
The best prepared relief agencies, Church World Service and the Red Cross, are completely overwhelmed by the numbers of people who are in desperate need and the devastation that has made it nearly impossible to get goods from one place to another.
The road to recovery is going to be long and complex.
Our commitment to providing relief must be deeper than a special offering or a day of prayer.
It is important that we not fall into thinking that this is just another storm in a world filled with storms. What has happened is unique. "The world has not seen a storm like this before," said Senen Mangalile, the Philippines Consul General to the UK. The storm was the most intense and strongest storm of this type to make landfall.
American military aircraft and ships are being deployed to provide help. The Philippines military is going to need reinforcements just to prevent mob action with so many people in such desperate need. The ability to move gigantic amounts of cargo including food, water and medical supplies is going to be required to prevent a secondary wave of death as people run out of food.
So today, as we recognize our veterans and honor them with a holiday it is once again important to remind ourselves that there are many paths of service. The young sailors, airmen and soldiers who will land in the Philippines today are going to be faced with circumstances for which there is no adequate training. There aren’t any scenes in Army recruitment videos that look like what they are facing.
It is easy to see the contributions of our oldest veterans. World War II was a massive nation-wide effort that brought many into service who might not have otherwise become involved in the military. Many served for a few years and when the war was ended they came home and invested in their communities and provided leadership for all kinds of local organizations. The threat that the world felt from out-of-control despots was real. The response of the military was effective. The dictators fell and democracy was returned and extended to places that had suffered under brutal dictatorships.
It is often more difficult to give proper thanks and pay homage to those who served in less dramatic times and less glamorous settings. The wars in Korea and Vietnam didn’t have the same kind of solid endings that characterized the Second World War. Subsequent actions in the Persian Gulf, in Iraq and in Afghanistan have involved different kinds of service and sacrifice. The contributions of those who have served in these places are no less significant, their sacrifices no less real, than was the case with previous generations of veterans.
And there are many whose military service did not involve going to war. They have served by providing security around the world and helping with peacekeeping, which can be more challenging than going to war. As every police force in the world knows, teaching a recruit to properly discharge a weapon is a very small part of training. The more difficult job is teaching how to discern when to use a weapon and when to refrain from shooting.
Today is a good day to honor all veterans, not just those whose service was long ago in famous locations. This morning my plan is to split wood for a veteran who never saw combat. He has no dramatic war stories to tell. And right now being a native Texan, facing a South Dakota winter seems to be more challenging than were some of the things he encountered while serving in the military. He would figure out how to get his firewood split and ready for his stove without me, but that pile of cut of logs represents a lot of work and when you didn’t grow up feeding wood into a stove, getting it split can be intimidating. In months to come I can teach him the difference between an axe and a maul and show him how I split my own firewood by hand. But today we’ll just use a power splitter and in a half day we’ll have that pile of logs split and stacked and ready for a winter that might be long and cold.
This afternoon I’ll go to visit a veteran who is nearing the end of his life’s journey. Hospice of the Hills has a special ceremony for veterans and this particular man has a son who is also a veteran who will be in town visiting his father. They both know that they don’t have much time left and feel the value of the time that they do have. Both of them long ago faced the reality of their own mortality. They are not overcome with fear. Their feelings, however, are complex as they journey along the edges of grief.
“Happy Veterans Day” doesn’t seem like the appropriate greeting for this moment in history. So I wish you a day filled with meaning and a new dedication to service. For it is in serving others that we best honor those who have served.
And the storm didn’t stop after ravaging the islands. The storm made landfall in North Vietnam, near the Chinese border as a tropical storm.
Six islands in the central Philippines bore the brunt of the storm. Buildings are flattened. In the coastal areas it wasn’t the wind that destroyed the buildings, but the water. The storm surge was as high as 45 feet in some places. Some cities, such as Baco, in Oriental Mindoro was 80% underwater. The city was home to 35,000 people.
You don’t have to go far to read about the devastation. I don’t think I can watch another video of a reporter walking through a field of rubble trying to describe the stench of human bodies without anyone to bury them, no one to attend to them.
The best prepared relief agencies, Church World Service and the Red Cross, are completely overwhelmed by the numbers of people who are in desperate need and the devastation that has made it nearly impossible to get goods from one place to another.
The road to recovery is going to be long and complex.
Our commitment to providing relief must be deeper than a special offering or a day of prayer.
It is important that we not fall into thinking that this is just another storm in a world filled with storms. What has happened is unique. "The world has not seen a storm like this before," said Senen Mangalile, the Philippines Consul General to the UK. The storm was the most intense and strongest storm of this type to make landfall.
American military aircraft and ships are being deployed to provide help. The Philippines military is going to need reinforcements just to prevent mob action with so many people in such desperate need. The ability to move gigantic amounts of cargo including food, water and medical supplies is going to be required to prevent a secondary wave of death as people run out of food.
So today, as we recognize our veterans and honor them with a holiday it is once again important to remind ourselves that there are many paths of service. The young sailors, airmen and soldiers who will land in the Philippines today are going to be faced with circumstances for which there is no adequate training. There aren’t any scenes in Army recruitment videos that look like what they are facing.
It is easy to see the contributions of our oldest veterans. World War II was a massive nation-wide effort that brought many into service who might not have otherwise become involved in the military. Many served for a few years and when the war was ended they came home and invested in their communities and provided leadership for all kinds of local organizations. The threat that the world felt from out-of-control despots was real. The response of the military was effective. The dictators fell and democracy was returned and extended to places that had suffered under brutal dictatorships.
It is often more difficult to give proper thanks and pay homage to those who served in less dramatic times and less glamorous settings. The wars in Korea and Vietnam didn’t have the same kind of solid endings that characterized the Second World War. Subsequent actions in the Persian Gulf, in Iraq and in Afghanistan have involved different kinds of service and sacrifice. The contributions of those who have served in these places are no less significant, their sacrifices no less real, than was the case with previous generations of veterans.
And there are many whose military service did not involve going to war. They have served by providing security around the world and helping with peacekeeping, which can be more challenging than going to war. As every police force in the world knows, teaching a recruit to properly discharge a weapon is a very small part of training. The more difficult job is teaching how to discern when to use a weapon and when to refrain from shooting.
Today is a good day to honor all veterans, not just those whose service was long ago in famous locations. This morning my plan is to split wood for a veteran who never saw combat. He has no dramatic war stories to tell. And right now being a native Texan, facing a South Dakota winter seems to be more challenging than were some of the things he encountered while serving in the military. He would figure out how to get his firewood split and ready for his stove without me, but that pile of cut of logs represents a lot of work and when you didn’t grow up feeding wood into a stove, getting it split can be intimidating. In months to come I can teach him the difference between an axe and a maul and show him how I split my own firewood by hand. But today we’ll just use a power splitter and in a half day we’ll have that pile of logs split and stacked and ready for a winter that might be long and cold.
This afternoon I’ll go to visit a veteran who is nearing the end of his life’s journey. Hospice of the Hills has a special ceremony for veterans and this particular man has a son who is also a veteran who will be in town visiting his father. They both know that they don’t have much time left and feel the value of the time that they do have. Both of them long ago faced the reality of their own mortality. They are not overcome with fear. Their feelings, however, are complex as they journey along the edges of grief.
“Happy Veterans Day” doesn’t seem like the appropriate greeting for this moment in history. So I wish you a day filled with meaning and a new dedication to service. For it is in serving others that we best honor those who have served.