Human Grace

November 11, 2018

Veteran’s Day as we know it was originally called  Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I. The ceasefire was officially arranged for 11:11 on November 11, 1918, the exact time chosen for media purposes. Talking with a friend the other day, he noted that combat forces had come to a stalemate prior to that hour, but some of the military brass insisted on continuing the fighting right to the very end, in one case ordering a battalion of what was then known as “colored” soldiers to attack a strongly held line. They were decimated. It was about 10:30 am, half an hour before the official ending of the conflict. Diplomacy had already determined the war’s end, but that didn’t keep officers from sending troops to their certain doom. Estimates run in the thousands of needless deaths in those last hours of the war.

War is ugly business. Robert E. Lee, observing the fighting at Fredericksburg, is said to have remarked, “It is well that war is so terrible. Otherwise, we would come to love it too much,” the “we” being those who don’t actually have much skin in the game. 

I once mentioned to a good friend, a Vietnam vet, how at times I felt guilty about not serving in the military. It was during the draft lottery years, and my number was 153, high enough that I was never called. I could have enlisted, but was in college at the time, and didn’t follow in the footsteps of my grandfather, my father, and my brother. My friend gently chided me: “Don’t ever feel guilty,” he said. “Be grateful that you didn’t have to experience it.” I am, and I am also grateful for those who did, some by choice, others by simply responding to the duty imposed upon them at the time. They stood in my place, paying a price I never had to pay for the life I am blessed to live, human examples of God’s grace given freely when Christ died for us all. 

People like myself cannot know fully the cost of such grace; those who have braved the horrors of battle understand. As I thank God for the grace of Christ which bought my salvation, I am grateful too, for the grace of countless men and women who bought my freedom.