On a recent episode of Law & Order, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom is the victim of a homicide. After returning from the war, he’d struggled with severe mental problems, while a bureaucratic snafu had left him without adequate disability benefits and finally homeless. He is found dead in a polluted alley. By a cruel twist of fate, his murderer, it turns out, is also a mentally unstable veteran of the Iraq war.
The next night, on ER, an Iraq war veteran fakes an injury to feed his addiction to painkillers. After an overdose, he begins speaking in Arabic, repeating the words screamed by Iraqi prisoners tortured by American sadists in uniform. The soldier had memorized the words, he explains to the doctors, after translating them over and over. But he could never convince his fellow soldiers to quit the torture. He was but one good soldier fighting helplessly against made-in-America depravity.
This is one view of the U.S. military.
On Sunday, in the chapel of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, I saw another. A tall, athletic Filipino-American midshipman sat in front of me, surrounded by six members of his family, including three siblings, all of them California cool. The sister had a prominent tattoo; one brother had a soul patch and the other’s hair was worn in that style resembling a rooster’s crest. The midshipman, with nearly shaved black hair, sat upright in his crisp dress whites. The parents, too, and an aunt were dressed up. It was a special occasion.
The service kicked off Commissioning Week at the Naval Academy, when graduates, having completed one mission, leave for another. Fifteen minutes into the service, the chaplain announced that some of the graduating midshipmen had chosen to dedicate their commissions to serving God. When she invited them to stand, the young man in front of me and dozens of his fellow midshipmen rose and promised to conduct themselves with dignity and honor as they served their country.
The midshipman’s father snapped photos of his son taking the oath and enlisted the boy’s aunt to operate the video camera. A reading from the book of Timothy followed and the family read not from pew Bibles but their own, the pages marked with the distinctive yellow streaks of a highlighter.
Later, they joined the congregation for an emotional rendition of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” also known as The Navy Hymn. The first and fifth verses honor sailors and Marines like those graduating from the Naval Academy: Eternal Father, strong to save, / Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, / Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep / Its own appointed limits keep; / Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, / For those in peril on the sea!
As the music filled the chapel, the midshipman’s father clutched his Bible and wiped away tears–of pride, certainly, and perhaps concern. Many of those who leave Annapolis will head to war zones in the Middle East, and some, sadly, will return to the chapel too soon afterwards for another service in their honor.
On the Wednesday of the Iraq-themed Law & Order, Major Douglas Zembiec, who graduated in 1995, was memorialized in the Naval Academy chapel before being buried at Arlington. Major Zembiec was killed outside Baghdad in early May. It was his fourth tour in Iraq–duty that included some of the fiercest battles in Falluja and resulted in a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. He left behind a young wife and a one-year-old daughter.
Washington Post reporter Dan Morse wrote about the service–attended by soldiers, sailors, and Marines of all ranks–in a memorable article for the paper’s Metro section. An officer, struck by the turnout of enlisted men, told him: Your men have to follow your orders; they don’t have to go to your funeral.
Zembiec had lived by a certain creed and had even bothered to write it down. It was called “Principles My Father Taught me.” At the burial, a friend of Zembiec’s read aloud from it: “Be a man of principle. Fight for what you believe in. Keep your word. Live with integrity. Be brave. Believe in something bigger than yourself. Serve your country. . . . Lead from the front.”
And he had recorded advice for his Marines: “Never forget those that were killed. And never let rest those that killed them.”
STEPHEN F. HAYES
