U.S.: We go back for our wounded
Our American military practices a unique, fundamental and inviolable rule on the field of battle: We go back for our wounded. Through the hail of bullets, at extreme peril to themselves, our soldiers, our countrymen, go back for their wounded, our wounded.
They go back whether that fallen comrade in arms is a close friend or a total stranger.
They do not ask whether that fallen soldier is rich or poor, male or female.
They do not stop to wonder whether they are black or white, gay or straight.
They do not go back for the medal.
They do not go back for the money.
They go back because of a solidarity of purpose and commitment that transcends the value of their own lives. They go back because to not go back would be a denial of the very meaning of that commitment and purpose. They go back because as Americans we do not fight just for ourselves as individuals. We fight for each other. And so we go back for our wounded.
The rest of us in normal society would do well to contemplate the meaning of this. When we as a society make the commitment to help our sick, to create and fund guaranteed payments and pensions for our elderly, to provide food, clothing, shelter and educational opportunities for our poor, to re-train our disenfranchised workers, to rehabilitate the anti-social; in short, when we feed our less fortunate a fish, while teaching them how to fish, we, as a society, are going back for our wounded.
Why? Because to do anything less would be a denial of the very meaning and purpose of America. We are not here to fight AGAINST our countrymen. We are here to fight FOR them, the healthy to fight for the sick, the strong to fight for the weak, the standing to fight for the fallen.
Our pledge of allegiance commits us to the purpose of liberty and justice for all.
When we call on our government to act on our behalf we are calling ourselves to action through the instrument of government. That action is best which seeks to bring back our wounded. All of them.
STEPHEN D. BRUNO
Hayden