From my latest for The Tidings, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, via the online version, Angelus News …
“Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13
Thanks to advances in medicine, many military members who may once have made this ultimate sacrifice for country on the battlefield now may bear wounds — both visible and invisible — but survive.
We make a great show of loving and honoring them on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, but far too often, we fail them where it matters most.
On Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 9 p.m. ET/PT (check local listings for time and channel in your area), PBS premieres “Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans in American History,” a new documentary by Emmy Award-winning director Ric Burns [brother of documentarian Ken Burns]. Airing as part of PBS’ “Stories of Service,” it looks at the way that the American government and society have dealt with wounded warriors, from the Revolutionary War through the long war going on in the Middle East.
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As more of America is physically isolated from the reality of military life, our pop culture reinforces negative stereotypes about those who serve. It’s all too common for TV shows and movies to laud protesters and anti-military dissenters but to look down on — or look suspiciously at — anyone who goes into the military.
“The whole issue of service to country is one which is fraught with all sorts of tensions,” Burns said, “ideological and otherwise. Somehow, how did it get to not be cool to serve your country? I’m not sure.
“I’m a hippie from Ann Arbor who’s now 60. I grew up in one of those places in the 1960s and ‘70s that was really detached from the military, where it was just second nature to blame servicemen for policies you might oppose. That was an aberration in American society.”
Click here to read the rest, and here to learn more about the show at the PBS homepage.
Among those appearing in “Debt of Honor” are wounded veterans Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), former Senator Max Cleland (pictured below, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, c. 1968), along with actor, motivational speaker and “Dancing With the Stars” champion J.R. Martinez.
Here’s a preview:
Images: (Top) Courtesy of the Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine; Cleland, courtesy of the Max Cleland Collection, Stetson University Archives
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