Tag: Second Inaugural Address

After a Time, All Losses are the Same

This past holiday weekend I visited two Civil War battlefields:  Antietam and Gettysburg.  While part of my motivation to go was purely the tourist’s curiosity, I also went to remind myself of the multitude of ironies present in armed conflict.  It does me well to contemplate what I believe to be the overall futility of warfare, regardless of the context.  I certainly found plenty of both.  I chose to go in part to celebrate Independence Day in a completely different sort of context.  While I do appreciate the sacrifices made to establish a new nation and with it a groundbreaking experiment in Democracy, my pacifist beliefs often leave me deeply conflicted.  To move nearly one hundred years forward in time from the Revolutionary War to the conflict that tore a hole in our nation’s fabric seemed much more suited for the occasion.