Memorial Day

I just finished watching Black Hawk Down, as part of my recognition of Memorial Day.  It is a film that honors US soldiers who died fighting in Somalia in 1993.  19 men died during an operation to restore order to the starving city of Mogadishu.  The film does a good job of presenting a balanced view of the issue, honoring those who fought without glorifying war.

Memorial Day is officially designated in recognition of those who died to protect our country, as opposed to those you survived serving in the armed forces, who are honored on Veteran's Day.  I feel that they are pretty linked, as both groups risked the same thing by joining the military, and veterans who survived combat usually experienced losing their teammates in the conflict.  That is a loss in and of itself, even if they personally survived.  And while there is a quote in the movie about people not choosing to be heroes, some just are, in reality that is not entirely true.  Some people deliberately take bigger risks than others to aid their fellow soldiers, even to the point of certain death.  The movie highlights two Delta Force operatives, who voluntarily inserted against a force of hundreds to protect the victims of a helicopter crash.  Neither survived, and both were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  I worked on Act of Valor which celebrates the selfless act of Mike Monsoor, jumping on a grenade to save others in his unit.  That act was choosing to be a hero, and fully deserving of the high level recognition it has received.

The US value its troops and their lives far more than any other nation.  We give our soldiers the best gear we can make, and don't leave a man behind.  When Mike Durant was captured during the Mogadishu raid, we mobilized a whole fleet of Marine units to come rescue him, and would have taken over the city to find him.  But we didn't offer anything to negotiate for his release, because that incentivizes future kidnappings and further endangers our soldiers.  He was released under they threat of massive retaliation.

So our value for our men in the big picture prevents us from negotiating for their release.  Obviously that policy has been ignored recently, but compared to European nations who are constantly ransoming their captured citizens to fund ISIS, we are still doing pretty good.  We speak the only language the enemy respects, force and violence, and have managed a number of successful rescue operations recently.

Hopefully we will continue to honor the sacrificed lives of soldiers in past struggles for freedom, by continuing to defend freedom in the future.  And I am one who believes that freedom is the most valuable thing one could fight or die for, but that view seems to be losing traction in the modern world, where true freedom in misunderstood or taken for granted.  But those who died for it didn't take freedom for granted, and no one else should either.