Random Lines A World Away

     I had to get this off of my chest because it was about to burn a hole through my brain.  I never suppress an idea when it comes to me.  Its about 5:30 a.m. here on the other side of the world, and despite being tired, I couldn’t shake these thoughts.  Lately, a lot of my buds in the unit have talked a lot about the reasoning behind our conflicts on this side of the world.  I watched two movies thathelped grabbed hold of my attitude and gave it a much needed “throttling.”  Enemy at the Gates and, strangely enough, Blindside gave me inspiration in their messages of true courage. 

     The Russians in World War II were a tortured army, due to the extremely incompetent leadership.  Not only was the leadership ignorant, they also treated the lower enlisted like the worst of all dogs.  They routinely killed their own men, accusing them of “traitorous acts” and not caring for the “mother country.”  The desperate need for a hero brought along the young Vasily Zaytez.  Vasily was an unusual hero, brought up as a peasant in the slums of Ukraine.  But, Zaytez became a hero due to his inexplicable skill with a rifle.  As a sharpshooter, he became a hero for Russia.  While he behaved with honor and morality, the rest of his country was plagued with wretched filth at all levels of its military.  Vasily didn’t take from the example of his “brothers.”  Instead, he lived by his own internal code that taught him not to question leadership, but to behave with honor.  At all costs, he defended his country from the ever extending arms of Hitler’s Third Reich. 

     In the movie, Blindside, there was a moment that cut at me like no other.  It was when Michael Oher was trying to figure out what he wanted to write about in his essay.  His adopted father applied a military example to being on the football field.  The military example was one of my all time favorite poems, “Charge of the Light Brigade,” written by Lord Alfred Tenyson.  Oher’s father explained to him the story of the British light brigade that lost 247 out of its 647 men.  The poem was written in memory of the men on the suicidal cavalry charge that lead them straight into Russian canons.  Lord Tenyson wrote,

” ‘Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d ?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d & thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter’d & sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

  The conflict was induced by ignorant leadership that led their men straight into “the Valley of Death.”  Though these men knew death was almost a certainty, they charged.  The lines that hit me the hardest were,

“Was there a man dismay’d ?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,” 
 

      “Theirs not to make reply, theirs but to do and die.”  The men fought in a seemingly meaningless conflict that only led to more and more of the same.  Yet, these men fought against innumerable odds.  Nowadays we have a lot of ”intelligent” people out there in society who see no need for courage and honor.  The very thought of a conflict wrought from bad intelligence drives them into a hair pulling seizure.  There are many conspiracies concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that may or may not be true.  Some of these conspiracies are maddening in that they lead me to question our higher powers.  I often wonder if the hearts of our leaders are indeed wicked. 

     The Bible states quite plainly that man is innately evil and selfish.  Sometimes, I wonder if a lot of the afore mentioned conspiracies are testament truths.  Then, I had an epiphany after watching these two movies.  A man raised up with moral values fights according to his internal code.  The real warrior asks no questions so that he knows no answers.  He may wonder whether what he is doing is indeed “just” or “righteous” but that’s as far as it goes.  Instead of complaining about the injustices passed down by ignorant leaders, he goes into the situation knowing full well it may mean death.  This man realizes that there are things far worse than losing his own life.  He is far more afraid of loss of honor and the things which God has stored in his heart.  I don’t know if what we do as soldiers is always completely “righteous.”  But, I do know that God judges the heart.  The loss of life in a “meaningless” battle is anything but meaningless in the eyes of the Lord.  Love our conflict, hate our conflict, but understand that a soldier does as he is told.  I leave you with a quote from the great philosopher, John Stuart Mill.  Mill was truly a man before his time.  He sought to end slavery in 19th century England (an EXTREMELY unpopular viewpoint at the time) and free England from all tyranny.  Stuart said, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”  Its a shame we don’t have more men in this country like Mr. Stuart.