THE WALLS of WAR

Memorial Day Speech 1992

TO MY FELLOW BRATS and THOSE BRATS WHO ARE VETERANS

This is the original speech that I gave for the Memorial Day service at the VA Hospital in Long Beach CA back in 1992. I still use it today except the heading and to who I am speaking to. Since Memorial Day is to remember those we lost in battle during war time, I felt it was appropriate to write about the different walls of war and there significance. Enjoy the read and share it if you wish with those you know the high price cost of life during a time of war.

Thank you for allowing me to share this with all of you

THE WALLS of WAR

Director Stordahl, General Voegel, Fellow Veterans, Distinguished Guests and Friends: 

It is a special honor and privilege for me to be asked to address you at this Memorial Day Ceremony on the grounds of this Medical Center- a facility that is solely dedicated to the health and care of the American Veteran and to the “Binding up of the Wounds of War”. 

This is a time to stop our “busy-ness” and to pause to remember – to remember those Americans slain in battle; to remember and give thanks to Almighty God for the Liberty and Freedom we have today – the Liberty that was purchased by the Flesh and Blood of our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen.

Memorial Day is probably this nation’s most significant holiday because it reminds us not of a particular event or individual but of many. Yes, some are remembered for their glorious deeds of valor on the field of battle – for which they are justly honored. Others, clothed in obscurity and mystery, simply never returned to their units having perished alone, unnoticed in some far off land or sea, and are simply listed as “missing in action”. 

Memorial Day is also important because should some one read the books of history that recount our past wars, one learns about battles and campaigns, strategies and politics, weapons and armies. Memorial Day, on the other hand, is a “history book” that teaches us that war is a tragic event not of pride and glory but in reality simply “blood, sweat, and tears”. 

And if there is any lesson to be learned, it is to seek after and to pursue peace with all our vigor and energy so that this nation is never forced to go through the fire and brimstone of war again. 

This day we remember the lessons of the past and somberly rededicate ourselves to peace. That may seem to be a strange pacifistic statement to make as I, stand here no longer wearing the uniform of this nation’s armed forces – a force that is associated with bombs, missiles, and napalm. But I wore this uniform proudly because I am convinced that peace can only be attained and preserved, as a human endeavor, by a strong and viable defense against those who would seek to invade, pillage, and destroy. To avoid the “winds of war” we must build and maintain a protective barrier, a “wall” if you will, around our nation so that we will never again have to send our men and women into destructive and terrifying battle.

In the far off land of China, there is a famous man-made structure known as the “Great Wall of China”. Started in the third century BC, it is the largest defensive structure in the world being some 2000 miles in length. Constructed of earth, gravel, brick, and stone, in places it is 50 feet high and 20 feet wide. Its size is such that astronauts can identify it from their perch as they circumnavigate the globe. It is obvious that a great deal of time, money, and human effort was expended to create such a magnificent wall. The purpose of this wall was to protect the ancient Chinese nation from the murderous marauding barbarians who regularly swept across China’s northern frontier to pillage, rape, and shed blood. And the fact the wall still stands today gives evidence of the importance that those ancients gave to the preservation of their nation and the protection of its people. It stands as a memorial to a people determined to survive as a culture and as a society and nation. 

Halfway around the world on another continent, another wall of more recent memory comes to mind. This wall, built by an equally determined nation, was built for a different reason. The “Berlin Wall” was built not to keep other people out of the land but to keep their own people from leaving; not to steal and murder but only to seek freedom and fulfillment. This wall separated brother from sister, neighbor from friend, and divided villages and towns. It was a prison wall where its guardians were not called upon to fire on the stranger without but to fire upon the citizen within. That wall, built of rough bricks and ultra-hardened cement and topped with barbed wire, was part of a barrier that extended some 860 miles. But unlike the wall of China, that wall lasted only 28 years and has melted into history. And the wall and the culture that built it has collapsed in ruin – a failure in its purpose and its evil determination to enslave a nation. It was breached not by shot and shell, but by the explosive power of freedom that is the desire of all mankind. The rubble of that wall is also a memorial – a memorial of a people imprisoned by a false and evil philosophy. It is a memorial to those people – 80 of whom, determined to escape the confines of that wall – were shot down and slain by their own fellow countrymen. 

There is a third “wall of war” that comes to mind – a recent wall that is located next to the Memorial to President Abraham Lincoln in our Nation’s capital. This wall is not memorable because of its material dimensions nor because of its historical interest. It knows not millennia of time, and its size is not measured in miles as it is only a few hundreds yards in length. Nor is it the beauty of the site or its lovely polished black granite that marked this wall as the most memorable wall of them all. This wall will endure because of the more than 58,000 that have been engraved into its polished black granite panels – the names of the men and women who did not return from America’s longest war, the Viet Nam conflict. This wall certainly endure. It will endure because it is a “spiritual” wall not limited by its mere physical dimensions. It is a “wall” that extends, like the Great Wall of China, across our nation from east to west. Beginning on the east coast in our nation’s capital, it spans our continent crossing rivers and plains, mountains and seas, towns and cities, to terminate in our most western state of Hawaii. For there in the waters of Pearl Harbor is the terminal segment of that “wall” made not of black granite but of beautiful white marble – a segment with the 1,177 names of the crewmen entombed in the grave of the battleship USS Arizona. And between that black granite wall in the east and that white marble in the west, there are more than a million more names – the unwritten names of our countrymen, black and white, and all the shades in between, who with their lives purchased for us the freedom we continue to enjoy this very day. May this “wall of war” never come down. We must be diligent to search for every erosion and crack that might cause this wall to decay and crumble because it is the costliest structure this nation has ever built. The burden and pain is great but must not be forgotten. It purchased for us our most valuable asset. 

May we never forget the words spoken by an East German woman the day the Berlin Wall came down: “a heart that has never suffered is a heart that will never sing”. 

Thank you 

Kevin R. Schaefer 

krs 

© March 1992