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Ethics and Morality
Memorial Day: A Gift That Keeps On Giving
"All gave some....some gave all."
Posted May 11, 2015
“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows
Memorial Day and its season of reflection is an appropriate time to consider the existential nature of warriorhood. That is, those who thrust themselves into evil and chaos for others often find psychological, physical, and spiritual meaning in fighting for order, life, and justice. Destruction is on our doorstep, and we need our armed forces (both domestic and abroad). They willingly expose themselves to defend our nation. Not just when called, but now—always right now. Don Juan Matus once said, “The spirit reveals itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only warriors are consistently attuned to such revelations.”
Our culture is captured by the essence of warriorhood and the selfless giving of one life for another. Despite the capacity for violence and their fighting spirit, warriors bear an immeasurable and beautiful quality: human empathy and compassion. The feelings of those they protect resonate with them yet the warrior expression is paradoxical. People often misunderstand by saying, “You take a life to save a life”? The answer is yes! As finely tuned emotional instruments, being exposed to death and destruction (licensed and required by our society) actually moves them toward manifesting the continuation of life as a vulnerable emotion and purpose that is ironically indestructible.
In a scene from the 2006 graphic novel adaptation, V for Vendetta, the protagonist has been shot, many times over, by the film’s arch villain. Horrified, the villain cries in desperation, “Die! Die! Why won’t you die?” He replies, “Behind this mask there is more than flesh. Behind this mask there is an idea and ideas are bulletproof.”
As a physical man or woman, one can fail, be forgotten or die, but ten, one hundred, or one thousand years later the idea of that man or woman can still change the world. It is powerful and noble at the same time and we never forget! This is why, on Memorial Day—and every day—we should always remember and thank God for them.
Not only must we speak of death, we must understand and appreciate the nobility of sacrifice and become comfortable with the spiritual tradeoff that comes with warriors losing their physical connection to the universe. It is not the war alone that makes the warrior but the service and sacrifice. We see it every day in our military, but the question remains: How is it that a human being can participate in the peril or pain of another and, without thinking, spontaneously sacrifice their own life for another?
German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, explained sacrifice as a breakthrough of the metaphysical realization that you and the other are one. “Separateness is only an effect of the temporal forms of sensibility of time and space.” True reality, then, is unity with all life—a metaphysical truth that becomes spontaneously realized at that moment.
Such a warrior is one who has given his physical life to some order of realization of that truth. That is the message of the myth! You (as you know yourself) are not the final form of your being—and we must all die to that understanding one way or another.
With such awareness, a warrior’s selfless regard for others is never in a moment of weakness despite their connection to the world. Facing another’s mortality is like facing your own, but it can be a positive and spiritually enlightening exchange. The recognition of one’s own essential being in another is most clearly and beautifully evident in those cases where a warrior, already on the brink of death, is actively concerned with the welfare and rescue of others.
N. S. Shaler expressed at the turn of the 20th Century, “Heroism is first and foremost a reflex of the terror of death. We admire most the courage to face death; we give such valor our highest and most constant adoration; it moves us deeply in our hearts because we have doubts about how brave we ourselves would be. When we see a man bravely facing his own extinction we rehearse the greatest victory we can imagine.”
Psychologist Ernest Becker explained that, as creatures, we have made death conscious. “As an organism we are fated to perpetuate ourselves and identify evil as a threat to that perpetuation. Therefore, we see evil in anything that wounds us, causes ill or deprives us of any pleasure.”
You and I are preoccupied with danger and evil and even in the absence of an immediate threat of death; our lives are still a meditation on it. The only planned venture for controlling or eliminating those threats is left with those who appear larger than life—our warriors. “Knowing” is only an extension of our humanity that we are forced to handle at the moment of truth—our truth or another’s. Those who have made the ultimate sacrifice have fulfilled their heroic destiny and are indeed finally at peace, but for warriors who have been chosen to escape their own peril in fulfillment of their service to others are only destined to bear a lifetime of suffering—an inescapable paradox. Not yet knowing peace themselves, they encumber a suffering for others so that they may know peace.
From King Leonidas to King David, Robin Hood to Batman, Spartacus to William Wallace, or simply our fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters whom we send to protect and defend, we have called our warriors “saviors” in both literal and symbolic senses. They deliver us from evil and the termination of our souls’ higher existence. Noble instincts arising out of this cultural hero system allow us to believe we can transcend death by participating in something of lasting worth. The service and honor of the armed forces provides that sense of worth and obligation to others. May God bless them all!
Copyright © by Brian A. Kinnaird
Brian A. Kinnaird, Ph.D. is a former law enforcement officer and current criminal justice professor. He is active as an author, trainer, & speaker and can be contacted at brian.kinnaird@gmail.com.
References & Suggested Readings:
Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. Simon and Schuster Inc. New York, NY.
Schopenhauer A., Hollingdale [translator]. (1973). Essays and Aphorisms. Penguin Classics.
Shaler, N.S. (1901). The individual: A study of life and death. Appleton: New York.
Wachowski (Producer), & McTeigue (Director). (2005). V for Vendetta [Motion Picture]. United States: Warner Bros.
