Posted on Mar 24, 2015
CW2 Joseph Evans
5.16K
27
10
1
1
0
But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian's daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?
- Mark Twain's Autobiography

Often we go to war on pretext of God, country, and family. We fight for things we believe in. While those on the other side are fighting for the same things. Politics aside, resources aside, when we go to war, do we think about the reasons why our enemy fights? What motivates the man behind the AK or who builds the IED? Does our fear, or drive to survive cause us to discount the virtues of our enemies?

Could you, in future days, confronted by an individual who has caused you loss in combat, greet him as a human being with a shared experience, even though it was from opposite sides of the conflict?

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/macomb-county/2014/09/20/enemy-wwii-vets-meet-years-later/15961843/
Posted in these groups: 5ccd6724 Morals
Edited >1 y ago
Avatar feed
See Results
Responses: 5
CPT Pedro Meza
6
6
0
CW2 Joseph Evans, Look I divorced her so do not bring her up to me. If you married her, she is your problem.
(6)
Comment
(0)
CW2 Joseph Evans
CW2 Joseph Evans
>1 y
Glad to see I'm not the only one to have escaped hell before the talons set too deep. ;)
(0)
Reply
(0)
CPT Pedro Meza
CPT Pedro Meza
>1 y
CW2 Joseph Evans - I am still laughing.
(1)
Reply
(0)
SGT Project Engineer
SGT (Join to see)
>1 y
Hahaha, as did I, boys. As did I!
(1)
Reply
(0)
Avatar small
Sgt Jerami Ballard
2
2
0
No man is so incapable of his own free will as to be blindly coaxed into war, see it's horrors, and still believe his cause is just.

I absolutely believe there must be a form of sympathy and compassion between those who may have met on the battlefield. Because it is a contest of wills, not the wills of a nation, the wills of an emperor, nor the wills of an army. It is the wills of the individual men that choose to forgo themselves for the expense of those immediately around him.

Both sides do this, no matter the orders that come down from higher.

As George Santayana wrote,
"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
(2)
Comment
(0)
Avatar small
SGT Jeremiah B.
1
1
0
From a Christian perspective the issue of humans and evil is complicated. I just fall back to Matthew 5:43-44: You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...

It's hard as hell sometimes though, especially when we're talking about groups like Daesh.
(1)
Comment
(0)
Avatar small

Join nearly 2 million former and current members of the US military, just like you.

close