In 1863, more than 100 people died when anti-conscription riots raged in New York City. Rioters who opposed the Union draft took special aim at abolitionists and Blacks.
In 1917, socialists like Eugene Debs were arrested under the Espionage Act, passed by Congress to prevent “interference in the success of the armed forces.”
In 1941, aviator Charles Lindbergh told a crowd in Des Moines that the British government, the Roosevelt administration and Jews were conspiring to ensnare America in a European war. Of the Jewish influence, Lindbergh said this: “Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”
These anecdotes aren’t offered as any kind of endorsement of reprehensible views or intended to embarrass or somehow diminish American efforts in times of war or strife. They only serve to point out that ours isn’t the only era when domestic public opinion seems unruly, passionate and divided. Politics are ugly and sometimes the country only looks unified in hindsight. Yet those who serve, then as now, display a proven record of rising above the discord with professionalism, honor and bravery, even if the home front doesn’t always reciprocate.
It’s been that way for nearly 250 years. Cemeteries in St. Joseph contain the graves of soldiers from the American Revolution and Civil War. Current census data shows that more than 6,100 Buchanan County residents, or 9% of the adult population, are veterans. The Pew Research Center finds that nationally, Gulf War veterans now account for the largest number of those who served in the armed forces, an indicator of how times change but the call to service does not.
All of these veterans left home to serve, but not all returned. Their stories are as varied as life itself, but all tap into a deep vein of appreciation and recognition that should never run dry, even in our current times that sometimes seem so fractured. Whether the domestic temperature is worse today is a matter of debate, but maybe all can agree that those who served merit something better and nobler than what’s often on display in the towns and cities that they fought to protect.
On this Memorial Day, it is for them that we lay flowers on graves or pause to remember the sacrifice. Perhaps more than anything else, a sense of quiet and stillness is proper today, not the silence of ignoring the service but the calm reflection that counters the noise of battle and also the shouting and finger-pointing back home. For one day, at least, let’s see about giving it a rest.
