What Did Our Military Sacrifice For?

Monday Ministerial Musings

By Rev. Mark William Ennis

2022 Blog #19

May 16, 2022

What Did Our Military Sacrifice For?

I received a great honor this week. I was asked to pray and invocation and benediction at the Bergen County Military Appreciation Month Ceremony. I gave up part of a “day off” to participate, but it was such an honor I couldn’t turn it down. It isn’t every day that you can publicly honor our past and present military members. Even though I have never served in the military, I know many people who have and continue to do so. They certainly deserve our respect and appreciation.

At this event I had the honor of sitting next to the keynote speaker, Dr. Cindy R. Jebb who is the President of Ramapo College, former Dean of West Point, and a retired Brigadier General from the United States Army. She was an interesting woman to speak with and gave an inspiring presentation.

Honors were given to a group of selected veterans including a few from World War II. There are few of that generation to honor anymore. As a child most veterans I knew were from that war. Now there are few from World War II or Korea as most are from Vietnam and our several wars in the Middle-East. All of them, of course, deserve our honor, respect, and praise.

And yet, I could not help but wonder what their sacrifice was for. Our nation is now in chaos with groups in conflict against each other. Congress is still investigating the “insurrection” of little more than a year ago. I prefer the word “treason” to “insurrection” but I think I’m in the middle of legal definitions here. Mothers can no longer buy formula for their children and inflation is causing great harm on our poorest citizens. Our nation is beginning to look like a third world nation. Is this really what our military members sacrificed for?

At last the Chorale Ensemble from Bergen County Academies rose to sing God Bless America. Young people from all walks of life and from very different ethnic backgrounds came together to sing a prayer for God’s blessing on our nation. These young people represented our hopes and dreams for the future. I was deeply moved by their rendition of this classis hymn. The sacrifice of all our military is for the future; the next generation. Perhaps this new generation will be more united and less divided, will be smarter in solving problems than past generations have. I thank our military and our veterans for preserving our nation so that the next generation can improve us.

#ReformedChurchInAmerica                                 #PastorMarkAuthor            

#BergenCounty                                                        #BergenfieldNJ

#MilitaryAppreciationMonthCeremony                 #BergenCountyAcademies

#ChoralEnsemble                                                    #Dr.CindyR.Jebb

To read more of Pastor Mark’s writings, please order copy of his book: https://deepriverbooks.com/books/the-circle-of-seven/