Comments (12)

General Smedley Butler, at one time the United States Marine Corps' most decorated hero, said, "War is a racket". He had faith. Faith that sometime, somehow, Americans would wake themselves and throw out the racketeers who plunge us into needless carnage and chaos that wars always entail. There hasn't been a single one of our wars during the past century that couldn't have been avoided with a modicum of common sense, civic courage and diplomatic skill. The Iraq invasion and occupation was an expecially blatantly useless geopolitical blunder that needn't have happened. There is no nobility, no honor, not even any purpose to death or sacrifice in that unholy mess. Maybe we're left with only the faith that tells us our national leaders are more often than not scoundrels and mountebanks who will sell us out for the phantasms of power, money and ideology every time.

Blog = attempt at journalism without any editing.

I don't know why I even bother to read the Post's "faith" section anymore. I've yet to read anything that is even remotely connected to religion on here, unless of course you count reading about atheists to be religion.

There are plenty of real sites out there on the net to get your religion news, NewAdvent.org, CWNEWS.com and Zenit.org, and blogs like Shrine of the Holy Whapping, and What Does the Prayer Really Say.

What the Post presents here is religion for and by the non-religious.

well its a nice place to visit...but i wouldn't wanrt to live there...think of all the fredoms we all enjoy and our security we tend to forget...all this and more...because there is always men and women to do our dirty hard and sometimes leathal jobs....no soldier dies in vane...we just some times think so...its the truth that some must die to keep us free and SAFE...no attacks in 6 yrs. do you think this is just by accident...if you don't know what your talking about don't talk...30

I feel for these fallen, brave soldiers and their families. I would like to remind people that these soldiers volunteered to serve their country, and at times, those volunteers are called to duty to fight in wars. They may not agree with the purpose of the war, or maybe they do, but they do their jobs anyway. That is what the military does. They fight wars. Some live, some die. I about choked when I read this overly-dramatic, sappy piece. What was the point of it again?

I visited here with my oldest son (30)and we watched with excruciating agony the expressions of pain by the families of the fallen.

I believe that all cadets at the military academies be required to spend a day here as a requirement to graduate.

As a World War II veteran of the European Theater, having survived "the final war for many, many years", I was deeply moved by the report from Arlington. Did I say "the final war"? There was Korea, the war in Viet Nam to help the French re-establish their colonial empire, and now another one to please a bunch of Neo-con liars, and who knows what Gulf of Tonkin, or WMD tale will these brave "let someone else's kid do the fighting" come up with. I say reinstate the draft, with little to no exeptions. This would give the the brave politicians a bunch of Mom's and Pop's looking over their shoulders, to make sure that their sons and daugters were being sent to war as the only alternative! We owe that much to those who gave so much!

Angela C got it right on 1-23 at 4:49 p.m. - "What a waste of space is this article..."

My auntie, my uncle, some family friends, some friends are buried there. It is a hard and sacred place to visit.

It would have been better had they given their lives to being parents, but also doctors, engineers, mechanics, teachers, artists, scientists, priests, farmers, etc.

It is sad, that, thanks to the leaders of the U.S. of A. instead their lives were given to sadism, mass murder, pillage, rape, and torture (which appear to be common Western values nowadays).

What a waste of space is this article. Finding faith? Where was the faith? All I found here is one person's opinion, and an author's lack of leg work. I find Arlington a very moving space, and I am humbled by the men and women laid to rest there. They, who gave thier lives, left behind that smiling little boy to defend my right to pray as I see fit. That should have been the focus of the article, or talked to a tourist or two for another point of view. What a shame you focused on the mud on your shoes instead of the of the Sacred ground upon which you walked.

Thank you for writing about this. I visited Arlington with a friend this autumn, and we found the newest section of graves. Seeing all of the gifts and keepsakes that were lain at the graves and watching some of the families gather with their deceased loved ones was excruciating. I had a deep sense of pointless loss. I'll never forget it. My heart will always go out to those families. May their loved ones rest in peace. May the leaders who sent them to their early graves one day truly realize what they have done.