Uncle Sam sent me to South Korea in 1953 during its war of survival against communist North Korea.

Rumbles of yet another war while I was there – that would in time explode into war in Vietnam – made some of my comrades believe that at rotation time, they would be headed to that next fight against communism instead of returning to the states. One of my schoolteachers wrote in 1953: “What do you do there besides freezing in the winter...I hope they send you home before things get started in Indo-China. It looks very much as if that is the next step. I pray that it is not...” Many who dodged the bullet in Korea did in fact end up fighting in that next confrontation with communism.

Does the fact that we fought communism well over half a century ago register in the minds of many of today’s young Americans who seem eager and ready to embrace the geopolitical scourge of communism that brought down major countries, including the once great civilization of China, turning it into the world’s greatest dictatorship?

Since my return to civilian life, I have witnessed a series of turbulent decades that have pushed America off its foundation. Then and now seem like antipodes between two different worlds, one declared “innocent” but easily proven saner, the other “sophisticated” yet – in spite of numerous advances in burgeoning fields – conspicuously deranged.

The contrast between the 1950s and the closing years of the last century vividly highlights a dissection in our country not seen since the Civil War, reflecting a chronically unresolved conflict between Americans who trust in God, as did the originators of this county, and those who trust in man, then and now. Leaders of the latter camp, partly or wholly ignorant of their own history, seem blind to the adverse consequences of their inadequate judgments, as they blindly steer an enfeebled nation into the hands of America’s global enemies, not one of whom has any regard for the sanctity of human life.

One would think that the lessons of such an unstable and explosive past century as my generation lived through would be applied intelligently toward the formation of a just, safe, and peaceful world by those entrusted to lead. Perhaps that is too big an assignment for mortals who take their cues and assignments from men who, despite their apparent intelligence, choose to ignore the nature of reality, preferring to commandeer it in god-like fashion.

But a regard for reality and principled, moral power are prerequisites to progress for people. Witness the condition of America today, perilously close to the bottom of the “slippery slope” warned against in America’s culture war.

My brother, who served in World War II, was justly bitter over the fact that half a million men of his generation and a great many fighters of subsequent generations went to their graves fighting for what? – today's mindless, degrading, lascivious culture with its contempt for civility and time-honored principles of morality and virtue greater than any generation’s non-equivalent substitutes? – Time-tested wisdom that defines for every generation the difference between freedom and license, need and wish, love and lust, dependence on the Power that designed us and the power that wants to enslave us. And my generation of fighters wonders why the hell we are now fighting communism in our schools and on our streets instead of on foreign soil.

The power that designed us (for which it is deemed divine) calls for a humbling respect for the sacredness of life, for a place in every heart, in every soul, in every mind where arrogance and conquest are not welcome. Without this vital appreciation for the value of life, there is no appreciation for the bloodshed and sacrifices of two world wars, the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, and subsequent conflicts to secure the right of every American to live free of tyranny.

Is today's unappreciative, amoral, immoral, principle-starved, baby-killing, Marxist warped segment of society what the staggering number of American fighters sacrificed and died for? Are today’s brave young fighters committing themselves to defending more of the same arrogant,  corrupted “democracy”? 

Judging from their actions to date, I must wonder if our leaders haven’t gone stark out of their minds. How else to explain the last couple of years of tyranny against people and now a mindless plunge into a major confrontation with Russia? When did progress become a synonym for insanity?

A pause for breath is all that’s left to remind ourselves that fighting that is not directly linked to defending one’s homeland, family, and community is wanton disregard for innocent human life, which no responsible leader can justify. The fact is, a search for the moral authority for wanton war in today’s world is most likely to lead to money bags and to politicians who violate their oaths of office and set themselves above the laws of God.

The war left to fight in today’s broken world is still the war against tyranny, a war that must be fought with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind – the very way we must love God – in order that the blessings of freedom may endure for all generations.

To any who might be asking . . .  has it come to this? . . . this great-grandpa must ask, has it not?

Image: Victor Jorgenson via Picryl // public domain