On this Memorial Day, our flags may wave on high, and bands play their marches in full vigor, but odds are the vast number of Americans’ hearts are wandering on desert sands, seeking answers to their questions: Why are we here? What devastation have we visited upon these people whom we have liberated? What devastation upon our nation?

When I turned on my television set this morning, Saturday, May 27, there was President Bush addressing the graduation class of West Point, prompting me to wonder what mental and spiritual gymnastics he had performed to carry him before that majestic body.

First of all, there were row upon row of proud, though frightened, parents, brothers, sisters and friends. “Frightened” is the operating word here. “Uneasy” won’t cut it. They’re way beyond uneasy.

The visitors have no doubt read about the latest investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November, which is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of two dozen civilians, reported by Congressional, military and Pentagon officials, according to Tom Shanker, Eric Schmitt and Richard A. Oppel, Jr. of the New York Times, May 26, 2006.

Gen. Michael W. Hagee flew from Washington to Iraq on Thursday to give a series of speeches to his forces, re-emphasising compliance with international laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Convention and the American military’s own rules of engagement., according to the report.

Across a four-column spread, a photo by Hammurabi Human Rights Group, via Associated Press, a man is shown covering his face in what may well have been both grief and disbelief. Others look on, paralyzed, at what has taken place. No hands are raised with clenched fists, no shouting, only subdued arms and tightly closed lips.

By now, the marines assigned to the Third Battalion, First Marines, are back at Camp Pendleton, Calif. We can only hope and pray they will eventually tell us what drove them to such despicable actions. Meanwhile, there are some questions we should ask ourselves:

Did our leaders take us into this war because of concern for human life in Iraq, or for the spoils of war in Corporate America? Has our lack of respect for our fallen men and women, in welcoming them home under cover of darkness, contributed to a lack of respect for themselves, their country, and the Iraqi people? Life or death; what does it matter? Had three tours of duty for some of the men taken them to the breaking point?

Are photographs of coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base off limits because of President Bush’s concern, reported by Thom Shanker and Bill Carter through the white House spokesman, Trent Duffy: “We must pay attention to the privacy and to the sensitivity of the families of the fallen, and that’s what the policy is based on and that has to be the utmost concern.”

However, in the February 2, 2004 issue of U.S. News & World Report, we find a vastly different opinion offered by Chief Warrant Officer 2 in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Belvois in Virginia, as a pilot-in-command of a UH-60 Black Hawk for the 12th Aviation Battalion. His commentary is titled, “Honoring the fallen, quietly.”

He tells us that there are no reporters on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base. “The public is not allowed to witness the military tradition of receiving the remains, instead, there are soldiers, roused at dark hours to stand in the confines of what seems like a secret as the dead are brought home.”

Evans says that during the ceremony, consciousness of the fallen is as tangible as the sight of the Stars and Stripes folded over each coffin, cradling someone’s son or daughter, husband or wife.

Gently, the soldiers carry the caskets and deposit them on the ground. When the last one has been carried from the plane, the soldiers lift them into a van, one by one. Without any command, the silence is absolute. Only a snap salute before the van rounds the corner marks the conclusion of the silent service.

The soldier reminds us: “A democracy’s lifeblood, after all, is an informed citizenry, and this image is nowhere in the public mind. The men and women arriving in flag-draped caskets do not deserve the disrespect of arriving in the dark confines of secrecy...For those of us standing on the tarmac at Dover in those still and inky nights, our feelings have nothing to do with politics. They are feelings of sadness, of empathy. And there is nothing abstract about them.”

In today’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd has a column that I think mirrors the message we would have liked to have given the 861 West Point graduates before they threw their caps into the air this morning: “Don’t become like them.”

“...I felt sickened to hear about the marines who allegedly snapped in Haditha, Iraq and wantonly killed two dozen civilians – including two families full of women and children, among them a 3-year-old girl,. Nine-year old Eman Waleed told Time that she’d watched the marines go in to execute her grandfather and grandmother, still in their nightclothes. Other members of her family, including her mother, were shot dead; she said that she and her younger brother had been wounded but survived because they were shielded by adults who died.

“It’s a My Lai acid flashback. The force that sacked Saddam to stop him from killing innocents is now accused of killing innocents. Under pressure from the president to restore law, but making little progress, marines from Camp Pendleton, many deployed in Iraq for the third time, reportedly resorted to lawlessness themselves.”

Who should be put on trial here? Dowd answers that question by telling us that Maj. Gen. John Battiste, one of those who called for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, told Chris Matthews that blame for Haditha and Abu Ghraib lay with “the incredible strain bad decisions and bad judgment is putting on our incredible military.”

It’s time for our leaders to take off the rose-colored glasses, to grow up and lead our people out of this nightmare, time for them to face what our troops face every moment of the day and night: War is hell. War costs lives. War costs money, stolen from any number of programs for education, health and the poor here at home.

It has cost something more, world-wide respect and trust. Worse yet, it has cost us respect and trust for ourselves. We don’t know who we are anymore, where we are going, or how we would get there if we did know.

What about those graduates? Did such knowledge come with the hard-earned diplomas? Let us hope and pray that such is so.

May God grant them and new officers in all branches, wisdom, compassion, strength, and love of country. And may our leaders be worthy of those newly-minted officers, or may they take early retirement, lest we find countless Hadithas abroad and on Main Street, U.S. A. God bless our country this Memorial Day, heal her wounds and bring her back to her early glory. Amen.

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