Hi God,
Today is Memorial Day,
or as my Dad would say,
until his last breath,
Decoration Day.
We’re supposed to honor
fallen war heroes.
Initially it was just
Civil War heroes—
we decorated their graves—,
but, since we can’t wean ourselves
from making war,
Memorial Day expanded to include
those lost in all subsequent wars.
We’ve had so many of those.
While I have a problem
with the making of war,
as you well know,
I don’t much have a problem
with giving honor to people
who died while doing what
they thought was the right thing to do.
I do have a problem with the people
who mislead them into the war.
And even more so,
I have a problem with the people
who like to make speeches on Memorial Day,
in front of the cameras and news photographers,
but who don’t seem to think that
honoring the fallen
requires them to honor
the injured whom their follies
have left behind.
So my prayer today
is that you help us to honor
those who have fallen in service to our country
by taking care of those who were injured,
either in body or mind,
while they were doing what they thought
to be service to their country.
If the taking care of these people
involves paying higher taxes,
I pray you’ll help us to accept with good grace
that paying these additional taxes is another way
we can honor our fallen and injured.
Amen