The Price of Freedom
My personal reflection on an often overlooked reason for a paid holiday…
It is Veteran’s Day 2005. When I was a missionary in Ontario, Canada, I was exposed to a plethora of new cultures. The United States of America isn’t the only place on earth where a free society exists. Many people come to Canada from other parts of the world to experience a place that is generally free from entities that impose on their basic rights to choose how they will live. As in other free societies, this basic freedom does not and did not come without strife. Canada celebrates Remembrance Day about the same time of year that Americans celebrate Veterans Day. For Remembrance Day, I have fond memories of the people I served in Ontario distributing little poppy flower pins, bringing to minds the flowers in the fields of Flanders where the more terrible battles were fought in World War II during the battles fought by the Allied Forces in 1944
Now war isn’t something that I condone at all, but anyone who is reading this may have their own opinions and I respect them wholeheartedly. War with all its tragedies is something that the greater population of North America and many other relatively peaceful parts of the world hasn’t had to endure on a personal level. That doesn’t mean that fighting and war doesn’t affect our society, of course.
If it was my choice, I would love to exist in a world where war doesn’t come with it. However, I realize that the freedoms enjoyed in society come with a price. And often that price is paid with lives of innocent people, and other people who believe in a cause.
Nowadays especially when the subject of war seems to dominate our newsreels and flood our email inboxes with messages for or against war in general, it may be hard to see or justify it. This shouldn’t excuse us from remembering the lives (lost or re-discovered) of many brave men and women who believed in a better world. Why else would any person put their life on the line? Since I’ve not been a part of any military endeavor, I’m not the authority, and it’s hard for me to say, but any war, popular or not, isn’t right in the general sense of right and wrong.
There is a man of God who lived anciently who taught of remembering the captivity of his people’s forefathers. Why would this pertain to us? Do we who live in a free society fully appreciate the battles that were fought so we can have the freedoms we enjoy? Do we use our freedoms with wisdom? None of us are perfect (including me who has many flaws) but I do believe that if we truly remembered what it took for us to enjoy the lives we have now, we would be enabled to make wiser choices.
I was preparing for this project by collecting random images and some video clips depicting the sacrifices made by men and women who were asked to be brave and fight for their causes. I contemplated about what others might think about some of the controversies of war when it’s not supported by the people that live in a nation that supplies soldiers for a cause who have to endure fighting and the killing of other humans. Like I said, war in general, popular or not isn’t right in my opinion. Does that mean that nations can’t fight other nations that oppress them and attempt to remove their rights to live peacefully? Does that mean that we forget the people who felt like they were doing what was asked of them or what they felt was the right thing to do?
Those questions probably should only be answered by each individual person.
The Price of Freedom from midiman on Vimeo.