I was born on a military base during the Vietnam War.
A little over a year before I was born, my father, Lieutenant Commander James Couperus, MD, had been assigned the post of Executive Officer, Medical Services, Whidby Island Naval Air Station - which is a fancy way of saying that he was the number two doctor at the hospital on the Whidby Island Navy Base. The day I was born, the Navy hospital corpsmen threw me my first birthday party - I was about two hours old. According to my dad, I was the “most spoiled and adored baby” among the medical staff on duty during the time I was in the hospital. (That may have been because I was one of the only babies in the base hospital.) When I imagine what that might have been like, I envision nurses and corpsmen in BDUs and officer tans giving me weight checks and holding me - a tiny pink bundle cuddled up against camouflage.
To this day I have a visceral reaction of comfort and familiarity to sights and smells associated with living near a military base and a dad who was on active duty. The sharp smells of jet fuel and diesel exhaust, men and women in all manner of uniforms - flight suits, helmets, battle dress, and formal uniforms; the thunder and roar of military aircraft passing overhead. Again, I have no cognitive memory of this brief amount of time, but my “lizard brain” reaction to them is unmistakable. My first memories of safety and home are intimately tied to our military. My sister and brother - born just before and just after my father’s military service, don’t have these same reactions. They are uniquely my own. So the tension that is present in the UU tradition between the military and our UU leadership resonates strongly with me. Because of this, I felt it was important to share my reflections on Memorial Day as a military brat and a UU.
Memorial Day is a day to reflect on what the true costs of liberty and freedom are. It is also a day to honor those who bravely paid the ultimate price for securing that liberty - to ourselves and our generation. It is a sacrifice that should not be taken lightly. For UUs, it is also a day to respect those sacrifices with an honest soul-searching about how we address the conflict between our principles and our politics. As UUs, we prefer to uphold those social justice leaders who idealized non-violence: those like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. We are less comfortable with those who see violence as a means of bringing about social justice when peaceful means are not effective. We are uncomfortable with Malcom X and other revolutionaries that espouse violence as a means of bringing about change. We are uncomfortable with the knowledge that violence is sometimes required to end oppression and tyranny. We struggle with the Doctrine of Just Warfare, with Augustine, with Aquinas, and other spiritual icons who discuss the reality that war is not only inevitable but sometimes necessary to protect those who are vulnerable. Memorial Day is a day when we can stand in that tension and acknowledge the cost and sacrifice that is sometimes required to secure peace and liberty. As UU Minister and Navy Chaplain Rev. Cynthia Kane said in the UU World article “Embattled Faith”: “to do the work of peace, I must understand the making of war.” We UUs must also understand the making of war and come to terms with the fact that protecting and upholding democracy and freedom will sometimes require war and sacrifice. Memorial Day provides a yearly opportunity to wrestle with those tensions.
Liberty. Freedom.
Those words have taken on more significance in the last couple of months. We have all felt the mental strain of having our normal routines curtailed. We have all felt the pressure of having to account for where we have traveled and remember whom we have come in contact with. We have, with a strange mixture of hope and fear, watched for signs that life can begin to return to normal. What we need to recognize is that normal isn’t coming back - and this weekend is a perfect time for us to look to our past as we begin to plan for our future.
We have all heard the saying, “Freedom isn’t free.” It is sometimes used as a tagline, sometimes as a verbal punch, sometimes said in irony, but no matter which way it is used, every year, we are once more offered the opportunity to pause and reflect on the truth of that saying. This year, I feel it is even more important that we remember the origin story of Memorial Day and what it can teach us going into the future.
Memorial Day was first commemorated at the end of the Civil War. Former slaves and freemen that had fought with the Union Army in segregated units gathered together to observe an hour of silence for the Union Soldiers that had bravely fought and died to secure their freedom. They felt it was important for them to recognize the sacrifices of those who had fought and died in order to secure the blessings of liberty, protect the ideals inscribed in the Constitution and give them freedom. This early celebration of Memorial Day was later co-opted and folded into the larger fabric of American society, becoming one of several patriotic holidays celebrated in the United States.
The Civil War changed the landscape of American Society. There was no longer “free” or “slave.” The 13th Amendment ended slavery and paved the way for what we now call “The Civil Rights Amendments.” Amendments that would seek to secure equality for everyone - Black, White, Male, Female. Yes, I realize that I am using antiquated terms, but using them honors the intent of the writers: discrimination based on physical and biological characteristics of race and gender would no longer be legally permissible under the highest law of the land. Everyone deserved to live their lives in freedom and as equals, and everyone was to be regarded as equal under the Constitution. Even though it took nearly a century for those ideals to come to fruition and we are still weeding out inequities and repairing the harm caused by slavery and oppression, the seeds of those ideals were planted at the end of the Civil War, watered and fertilized by the blood of those who gave their lives, and the tears of those they left behind. I was unaware of the origins of Memorial Day until I learned about it during my American History survey course in college. The gradual erasure of the role of freed slaves and freemen soldiers from the origin story of Memorial Day highlights our continued struggle to include stories from minority cultures in our written accounts of US History. Another aspect that makes Memorial Day especially complicated for me is that so many UU Memorial Day sermons focus on the lives sacrificed in the fight for social justice and equality, while remaining silent on the role of the military and warfare in the pursuit of social justice.
During the Civil War and World War II, Unitarians sided with the Union Army and the Allied Powers. They spoke out against the injustice of slavery and the threat of authoritarian tyrrany. They felt that there was clearly a “good side” and a “bad side.” In Unitarian history, Memorial Day was heralded as a somber celebration - a time to remember those who served and died to secure the blessings of liberty and make the world a safer place. Later on, the Vietnam war and the violent political turmoil surrounding the civil rights movement changed the UU relationship to holidays and rituals celebrating liberty, freedom, and American patriotism. We struggle as a denomination to find harmony between our values that celebrate the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the honest and free search for truth and meaning, and our democratic values, which denominational leaders felt were co-opted to advance an American political agenda that marginalizes vulnerable populations and cultures. Vietnam created an uncomfortable tension between the democracy and liberty that UUs cherish, and the violence that is sometimes required to achieve those ends.
The mirror of our past reflects the uncomfortable truth that we as a denomination have come up short. While we stood up to oppression and tyranny during the Civil War and World War II, we turned away and failed to provide honest, difficult leadership during the Cold War when political and military actions created tension between two of our cherished values: the inherent worth and dignity of all humanity and the free and responsible search for meaning through democracy and the democratic process. During the Cold War, securing peace required the willingness to use military force, a tactic euphemistically called “diplomacy through other means.” Our UU belief in the freedom to search for truth and engage in the democratic process collided head on with the equally important liberal religious value of recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of all individuals and the requirement that we treat all human lives with dignity and respect as part of our interconnected web of life. During the Vietnam War, UU clergy and leadership supported demonstrations and speaking out against the war, while failing to acknowledge that the Constitutional freedoms that gave them the right to assemble and protest were the same liberties that the United States believed it was protecting. The United States military response to what our government perceived as a “real and credible threat” to democracy, not only in the United States, but across the world, changed the UU perception of the military from an ally in creating and shaping social justice to an instrument of oppression and cruelty wielded by an unjust government. This about-face in perception created an uneasy relationship between our past, our present, and our future that we continue to struggle to resolve.
This Memorial Day we again occupy liminal space at the threshold of a changed landscape. COVID-19 has eroded our liberty and freedoms to an extent not thought possible short of an armed invasion of the United States. States and counties have issued executive orders that do not provide for Constitutional requirements of due process and judicial review, while at the same time restricting worship and travel - because of the real and credible threat to our individual health and safety. Tensions have flared up between those who feel like the emergency orders are a threat to our Constitutionally protected freedoms,and those who believe that lifting the emergency orders threatens the health and safety of our vulnerable populations. With our never ending 24 hour news cycle, we are inundated with news reports about the deadly effects of COVID-19, while at the same time news reports are increasing about the long-term and sometimes deadly consequences of extended stay at home and social distancing orders. Both are accurate. Both sides have the advantage of being true. Lawsuits representing both sides of the argument are being filed. Our individual freedom is tenuous, and both sides feel the abrasive effects of uncertainty. Once again we are challenged as we try to reconcile competing UU values: the dignity and worth of the individual, the individual search for truth and meaning, and the value of the interconnected web of life, when all choices available result in some form of collateral harm.
The American Military is the personification of that tension. Members of our UU community, who also serve in the military, report feeling tension and stress around holidays and rituals honoring our military and memorializing our participation in armed conflicts. They feel called to serve in the military while at the same time identifying spiritually as UUs; explaining this call to service can often be difficult. They are grateful for the service of UU military chaplains who help them navigate and explore what it means to be UU and serve. They are grateful for UU military chaplains that share this dual identity and struggle with how to honor both their military identity and their spiritual one. Memorial Day is especially difficult because while the larger military community comes together to remember, pay respects to our fallen soldiers, and grieve, many UU congregations shy away from addressing the needs of UU service members who seek comfort and support from their faith community, choosing instead to recognize spiritual and political leaders who sacrificed and died while engaging in social justice work and remaining silent on the contributions of the military in pursuit of those same ideals.
Outside the military, UUs - particularly UU clergy - have the difficult challenge of reconciling the uncomfortable truth that our values of freedom and democracy come at a price. As our faith tradition also values and prioritizes the worth and value of all individuals - regardless of political or religious beliefs - the price of life in exchange for freedom feels like too high a price to pay. For those of us who have been a part of military life, we understand intrinsically that the absence of war does not equal an absence of suffering and death. We have learned that doing the right thing sometimes can and will result in injury and even death. We understand that protecting those who are weak and more vulnerable comes with risk, including the risk of suffering and death. The struggle to successfully engage with and reconcile the values of human worth and dignity and the values of freedom and democracy are challenges that all UUs share, especially now as we face an uncertain future.
This Memorial Day offers UUs the opportunity to confront those tensions and acknowledge the price of democracy and freedom. It offers up the opportunity to remember the history of Memorial Day and pause to remember those who gave their lives in order to protect our right to worship together, regardless of whether or not we as a denomination agreed with those decisions. This Memorial Day gives us the opportunity to recognize the inherent worth and dignity of those who felt called to serve and gave their lives in service. It also gives us the opportunity to engage in the difficult conversation that our UU values can be at odds with one another and part of our faith journey is to confront those difficulties and find a path that respects both. As we look toward what the future brings and the struggles between safety and democracy that are on our horizon, I hope that we use this Memorial Day to remember our UU history and pay the highest respect possible to our UU service members who gave their lives: to engage honestly and bravely with struggle between our cherished freedoms that they sacrificed their lives to protect and their belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every individual.
