News - Editorial

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009

EDITORIAL: Honoring those who face the horror with honor

This is too somber a Veterans Day to simply pause, salute and move on. The deadly shadows of Iraq and Afghanistan are darkened by last week’s slaughter of unarmed Americans at Fort Hood.

It has been a long time since “the face of battle” showed itself so clearly so deep in the heart of Texas.

It all combines to make a customarily celebratory Veterans Day feel more akin to Memorial Day, in that we are a nation still in mourning.

War, real war, will do that. You may parade in and out of one, but you do precious little parading when you are actively engaged in one.

As Eugene Sledge, a Marine from Mobile, wrote of Okinawa during World War II: “I found it more difficult to go back each time we square away our gear to move forward. … With each step toward the distant rattle and rumble of that hellish region where fear and horror tortured us like a cat tormenting a mouse, I experienced greater and greater dread. And it wasn’t just dread of death or pain, because most men felt somehow they wouldn’t be killed. But each time we went up, I felt the sickening dread of fear itself and the revulsion against the ghastly scenes of pain and suffering among comrades that a survivor must witness.”

Last week, a ghastly scene of war’s pain and suffering and death took place, not half a world away, but just over there, in the bosom of an Army base.

It was another moment of the horror that honorable men and women who serve this country have endured for generations.

The valor of the American armed forces cannot be bought and can never be repaid. But it can be appreciated. And today is an especially appropriate day to do just that.

The editorial above represents the views of the Sun Herald editorial board, which consists of President-Publisher Glen Nardi, Vice President and Executive Editor Stan Tiner, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Flora S. Point, Opinion Page Editor B. Marie Harris and Associate Editor Tony Biffle.