If we really want to honor those whom our country has sent to war, we should honor their suffering, which usually goes on long after they’ve returned from the killing fields. And we should mourn the lives that they destroyed at their country’s command in what may have been a war of aggression for an unjust cause, as in Vietnam and Iraq (or, for Russia, in Afghanistan and the Ukraine). And we should do a much better job of caring for them once they’ve returned to us, providing the treatment and care and training that they need, instead of the all-too-often shameful conditions that exist in the institutions that we’ve set up for them to stay in if they need such shelter and therapy, and if they have nowhere else to go for those essentials.
“AGAINST WAR”
from the Tao Te Ching (c. 400 B.C.) by Lao Tzu (tranlated by Ursula K. LeGuin)
Even the best weapon
is an unhappy tool,
hateful to living things.
So the follower of the Way
stays away from it.
–
Weapons are unhappy tools,
not chosen by thoughtful people,
to be used only when there is no choice,
and with a calm, still mind,
without enjoyment.
To enjoy using weapons
is to enjoy killing people,
and to enjoy killing people
is to lose your share in the common good.
–
It is right that the murder of many people
be mourned and lamented.
It is right that a victor in war
be received with funeral ceremonies.
