Veterans Day

Just for the record, I served in the Army artillery in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. My father served in World War II in Europe, where he earned a Combat Infantry Badge, and in the Pacific, and later in the Korean War, where he earned a Bronze Star. His father, who is buried in Arlington Cemetery, served in France in World War I and in the Philippines in the Spanish-American War. My mother's father's father, who was the subject of the book From That Terrible Field, served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, including at the battles of Shiloh and Mobile Bay.

No one in my family was a career soldier. My father stayed in the National Guard after World War II, and was called up for Korea. His father left the Army after the Spanish-American War, but re-enlisted for World War I.

I don't know of any veterans in my family any farther back than these.

Why Are Police and Firemen Worth More Than Soldiers?

The New York Times reports today that the families of those who died in uniform as a result of the 9/11 attacks -- police and firemen -- received $4.2 million on average. What do soldiers get who are killed in combat in Iraq? Some thousands of dollars. One chart says the automatic amount of insurance for servicemen is $200,000, which costs $0.90 per $10,000 per month, plus a $6,000 immediate gratuity. Why is a New York policeman worth so much more than a soldier from Kansas? I don't get it.

More Thoughts on Abortion & Christian Politics

Thinking more about the passages in Exodus 21 mentioned in the last post, it seems unreasonable that the Biblical writer (Moses) would anticipate only a premature birth, given the medical treatment available hundreds of years before Christ. A premature birth would occur only in a few occasions when the woman was in her eighth or ninth month and if the injury from the striving men was not too serious. It is much more likely that in most cases the child would be still born, and that therefore the "mischief" that might "follow" would be the death of the woman from the assault and the consequent miscarriage, not the death of the infant who had been born prematurely. It is more likely that a woman in the early stages of pregnancy who miscarried would not die, than that a woman in advanced stages who miscarried as a result of injury would not die. To me the right-to-life interpretation is too strained to be the correct one. In addition, infant mortality was high in those old days, so that the death of an infant would not be as unusual as it is today. But the wording is ambiguous; I think my interpretation is the correct one, but it is impossible to be sure.

Another issue that bothers me is the self-righteousness of the evangelicals and their bragging about how much they pray. The self-righteousness was on display yesterday on ABC this week with the head of Focus on the Family. When George Stephanopoulis asked him whether he would like to apologize to Sen. Leahy for saying that Leahy hated God's people, he said no, that he stood by his statement accusing Leahy of hatred of God's people. When Stephanopoulis asked him if this was Christian, he said Stephanopoulis could not teach him about being a Christian.

I found the head of Focus on the Family to be very un-Christian. Today's op-ed in the New York Times by Gary Hart explains well why the so-called Christian conservatives are not Christian. He misses one point, however, from the Sermon on the Mount. The evangelical Christians talk about how much they pray. See, for example, yesterday's New York Times Magazine. Jesus said (Matthew 6:6):

• But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

I really question whether any of these so-called evangelical Christians has read the New Testament.

The Bible Seems To Say Abortion Is Not Murder

Exodus 21:22-23 says:

"22 If men strive and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

"23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life."

The most straightforward reading of these passages seems to mean that if a man causes a woman to lose the child she is carrying, then he must pay a penalty, but something short of the death penalty for taking a life. If the woman dies, then the death penalty applies. However, I see from looking around the Internet that the right to lifers interpret it to mean that if a man cause a woman to give birth prematurely, but the child survives, then there is no death penalty, but the child dies, then the death penalty applies.

I looked into this because the talking heads on TV are saying that "values" or "morality" were the most important factors in electing Bush, but that this really meant only two issues: abortion and gay marriage. The Bible, particularly the New Testament, has so much to say about loving your neighbor and caring for the poor that I would think loving your neighbor would be important to Christians of any type -- evangelical, born again, or traditional. If the abortion issue is so much more important than Jesus' sermon on the mount, it looks like it would have gotten more attention in the Bible, and that any mention of it would be clearer than Exodus 21.