Well said.

Thanks to Izaak for the words.

It's not about forgetting; it's about remembering with honor.

9-11: Lest We Forget.

Because that would be a horrible thing. By God, if we ever stopped being embroiled in hatred and our thirst for revenge, then all the souls of the innocent victims of terror would look down from their lofty places in heaven and curse our names.

In literature, it’s called the Minervan Argument, that the first to die demand the sacrifice of others, since by their deaths they have proven that no price is too high to pay for the cause. The living are compelled to fight on, because to make peace with an enemy who had brought the deaths of their fellows would offend the memory of the dead.

But is it possible to offend the dead? Especially by calling for an end to the violence that took their lives? Perhaps in the great beyond our souls are still the hateful, vengeful things that beat in our chests while we’re alive, but I’d like to think we get better with age, and that the freed souls of man far removed from the savagery and blood thirst of fear are wise and kind. It is not the dead who are offended, but those of us they left behind. And unwilling to shoulder the burden of delivering so much violence, pain, and suffering to our enemies in our own name, we ask the dead to shoulder that burden for us, and in so doing we dishonor our fallen.

It is, perhaps, a tragedy to die, or to lose a loved one. How much more the tragedy to kill in the name of those we loved. There is no fitting garland to the lost of this war but the wreath of peace; no greater honor to their memories.

Lest we forget.

IDS