Christmas with the Presidents
Jerry Newcombe
Veterans Day has always been a major feature in my life because my father and uncle were both born on Veterans Day, though four years apart. Each of them served in the military. My uncle served for his entire career and retired highly ranked. My father did two tours in Vietnam after having been drafted. The documentary Brothers in War captured the story of the June 19th ambush that wiped out the vast majority of my dad’s company—a day he remembered every year, often talking through the night to one of his few Army buddies who survived. My father was honorably discharged, having received a Bronze Star with a “V” device and a Purple Heart with an oak leaf cluster; he would eventually receive full disability due to injuries sustained during his military service.
As Veterans Day passed this week, and just over two years after my father went to glory, I was reminded of what the Westminster Larger Catechism says about the fifth commandment to honor our fathers and mothers:
By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.
Honoring military service members, and particularly retired combat veterans, is part of fulfilling our fifth commandment duty to give honor where honor is due, including to our elders in our commonwealth. We are to give honor to presidents and governors, senators and congressmen, judges and other magistrates, fathers and mothers—and veterans alongside them who provide for the national defense as ordained by God. Although modern technology and industry has made our daily lives much easier and safer than any previous generation, the world is truly a dangerous and violent place. The norm of the world still is political unrest and violence. Those who serve in the military play an essential role in God’s purpose for civil authorities to “bear the sword” as Romans 13 enjoins.
Our catechism also details the duties of our “superiors” in our commonwealth, which includes the responsibility of presidents and military leadership toward enlisted service members and veterans:
It is required of superiors, according to that power they receive from God, and that relation wherein they stand, to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors; to instruct, counsel, and admonish them; countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well; and discountenancing, reproving, and chastising such as do ill; protecting, and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body: and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary carriage, to procure glory to God, honor to themselves, and so to preserve that authority which God hath put upon them.
Although following 9/11 there was a rising national patriotic unity in the United States, the last two decades has left many Americans with a sour taste in their mouths. Some of our wars have been the result of blatant government fabrications, as with the Iraq war. Considering the treatment of our veterans at home, many do not believe that our government has treated them as God would command: “to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors… protecting, and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body… so to preserve that authority which God hath put upon them.” Many of us have come to fear that our leaders have largely regarded military service members as pawns to be used and then discarded once they are of no use to global geopolitics, fighting wars undertaken not to protect our homeland but to secure corporate profits for the military industrial complex.
With the recent presidential election, it appears that the military industrial complex represented by the Harris-Cheney coalition has been temporarily defeated. There is reason for hope that a Trump/Vance administration may go far in securing a much more longstanding defeat against the Washington war party.
This Veterans Day, may we take up the call to honor our fathers and mothers in our commonwealth, including all those who have honorably served. May we continue to take up the call for our leaders to take seriously the responsibility they have to safeguard the lives of those who serve. This includes calling our leaders to account when they needless spend American lives, but also in ensuring that those who have paid high costs during honorable service to this country are well cared for when they return home. Only in this way can the proper authority that God has given them be preserved.
Happy birthday, Pa!
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