Eleventh Hour, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Month

            Those three “elevens” signify a time and place – a season of our lives – when we, as citizens of America, say “Thank You” to those who have worn and do wear the uniform of our country by serving in the Armed Forces. 

            This is a civic holiday not a church holiday.  It is a holiday that has become increasingly lost in the preparations for the holiday season and the busy schedules of our lives.  At church Sunday we will celebrate a service of worship around our gratefulness for those veterans in our lives. 

            Veteran’s Day is one of those holidays that hold special significance for me.  One of the yearly rituals is to walk the sacred grounds of Arlington National Cemetery and pay respect to those we know who are now interred there – a friend, a neighbor, fellow servicemen, and a relative.  In other words, Arlington is personal.

            I am both an Army Wife (married to a career Officer as well as an Army Civilian Employee) and a clergywoman serving in The United Church of Christ.  I can honestly say that I am who I am because of each of these communities – the military community and my faith communities.  They have been complimentary in my formation.

            There is an abundance of wars and warring language in the Bible and those passages are NOT the touchstones of my faith.  Rather I have always returned to John 15:13:  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

            This is not a passage designed by Jesus to give a framework for military life.  Indeed, Jesus had a very different view of resolving conflict – that of Love, reconciliation, caring.  In fact only 4 verses later he says:  I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

            Yet as an Army Wife I have always been aware that the cost of service was expressed in those few words from the Gospel of John.

I was fortunate.  My husband returned from Viet Nam in one piece (all two and a half years of serving there).  Our assignments led us to Washington DC and the Pentagon instead of the front lines.  And when things returned to a state of continual conflict after September 11 he was able to be of service as an Army Civilian. 

            While he was on active duty I experienced first hand the Army family (and I am sure the other Services are the same).  The support and caring we gave one another became a way of life.  I still experience that unscripted support and caring whenever I am in a military setting.  There is something about knowing the cost of service that binds us together.

            While I was fortunate enough not to have to deal with life crushing or life altering circumstances, others have not been as fortunate.  We honor veterans every November because they have “Lain down parts of their lives – lost forever” in order that they and we have the freedoms we so cherish. 

            When we have medical appointments at Walter Reed National Medical Center we see so many who are in various stages of recovery from life-altering experiences in service to their country.  When we visit with friends whose sons or daughters have answered the call to service we sometimes hear of the night horrors they face, the reality of PTSD.  When I served a church in Baltimore we worked with the Chaplain’s Office of the Maryland National Guard to help service personnel who were stranded by the system for one reason or another.  When we were stationed in Ft. Ord in the 1980s I saw first hand the reality of low ranking military personnel subsisting on food stamps and living in a dilapidated  Guest Quarters that didn’t have heat on Christmas Eve.   (I was very pleased to be part of the solution for that second condition!  Because I was  President of the Officer’s Wives Club I was in a position to make a difference.)

            On this Veteran’s Day I hope all will take time to say “thank you for your service” to those who accept the responsibility of serving in our Armed Services.