![\"Debt-of-Honor-1\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/524\/2015\/11\/Debt-of-Honor-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFrom my latest for The Tidings,<\/em> the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, via the online version, Angelus News<\/em> \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cGreater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.\u201d \u2014 John 15:13<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 both visible and invisible \u2014 but survive.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 9 p.m. ET\/PT (check local listings for time and channel in your area), PBS premieres \u201cDebt of Honor: Disabled Veterans in American History,\u201d a new documentary by Emmy Award-winning director Ric Burns [brother of documentarian Ken Burns]. Airing as part of PBS\u2019 \u201cStories of Service,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n As more of America is physically isolated from the reality of military life, our pop culture reinforces negative stereotypes about those who serve. It\u2019s all too common for TV shows and movies to laud protesters and anti-military dissenters but to look down on \u2014 or look suspiciously at \u2014 anyone who goes into the military.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole issue of service to country is one which is fraught with all sorts of tensions,\u201d Burns said, \u201cideological and otherwise. Somehow, how did it get to not be cool to serve your country? I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a hippie from Ann Arbor who\u2019s now 60. I grew up in one of those places in the 1960s and \u201870s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Click here <\/a>to read the rest, and here<\/a> to learn more about the show at the PBS homepage.<\/p>\n Among those appearing in \u201cDebt of Honor\u201d 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 \u201cDancing With the Stars\u201d champion J.R. Martinez.<\/p>\n\n