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“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against
all enemies, foreign and domestic...”
— United States Armed Forces Oath of Enlistment
This past summer while I was living in Virginia, my coworkers and I stumbled upon the
Armed Forces Memorial in Norfolk. Located on the Elizabeth River, adjacent to a naval station
where U.S. soldiers have been shipped abroad for decades, the Memorial features twenty letters
from veterans who died during their service. Although they ranged in date from the
Revolutionary War to the Gulf War, the letters expressed many of the same sentiments: The men
wanted to see their loved ones again, they hoped peace efforts would come to fruition, and they
wanted to be spared death. Reading the letters, an eerie sorrowness came over me; I knew that I
was reading a soldier’s last plea to humanity, last confession of love, or last reaffirmation of
perseverance before they sacrificed their life.
Whether or not war is necessary or justified is a different question entirely, and it is not
one I will address in this blog. However, the fact that war occurs remains true. It also remains
true that people will continue to serve in wars for many years to come. If we continue to ship
service members off to war, we should contemplate the gravity of the request we are making: we
are asking these fellow citizens to potentially witness or commit atrocities, to die, or to return
home and grapple with moral contradictions.
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The Memorial gates bear an engraving that reads “We leave you our deaths. Give them
their meaning.” This demand was as striking as the letters themselves. Accustomed to thanking
veterans for their service or observing a moment of silence for the ones who gave their lives, I
had never before felt that there was a reciprocal relationship between civilians and service
members. We all hear the platitudes on Veterans Day or Memorial Day: Thank you to all the
service members who have fought to protect our country. Of course, they did protect our country,
but I think that is a reductive way to phrase their sacrifice. Each service member takes an oath to
defend the U.S. Constitution. Above all else—their loved ones, their homes, their little corner of
the country—they vow to defend American laws and ideals. They are not merely protecting the
country, but they are preserving it so that those of us still here can fulfill the American dream,
according to the democratic process.
I considered if we are giving their deaths (and every case of PTSD, all the grief, and each
instance of veteran suicide) meaning at this particular moment. When the current Administration
installs an unelected billionaire to direct governmental activities, fires more than fifteen
inspectors general, freezes foreign aid, and purges 5,400 Pentagon employees along with the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of the Navy, the vice chief of the Air Force, and
the top JAG lawyers, I sense something unconstitutional afoot. I’m not convinced that we are
upholding our end of the bargain. It seems that we have lost the civilian sense of duty—to remain
educated rather than entertained, to serve our neighbors, to vote, and to hold our representatives
accountable. We must prepare to do the work domestically, and when we thank a service member
for their service, we should also vow that we will do everything in our civilian power to make
their sacrifices worth it.
“And those politicians who speak of war as an instrument of power, those who wage war but do
not know its reality, those powerful statesmen ... those who treat war as part of the great game of
nations, are as amoral as the religious stooges who assist them. And when the wars are over,
what they have to say to us in their thick memoirs is also fatuous and empty”
— The Greatest Evil Is War by Chris Hedges
Piper Coleman is a McConnell School in the class of 2025. She is studying geography, political science, and philosophy.