Elizabeth Morgan, Sartell
I am a patriot and a Christian.
My father proudly served in the U.S. Navy. My grandfather was a major general in the U.S. Air Force. My uncle is a retired Air Force veteran. And on Sept. 11, 2001 that same uncle – my godfather – was in the Pentagon. For several torturous hours we had no idea if he had been injured or even killed.
So I understand the pain and fear created on that day. And I understand how pain and fear can easily turn into hate and anger. But anger is rarely righteous, and hate is never Christ-like.
As a patriot and a Christian, I believe we should always care about how we treat our enemies, like the advice columnist Ann Landers once wrote: “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
I am not pointing this out to condemn anyone; I simply want people to understand why it is important we care.
We should care how we treat the dead bodies of our enemies. We should care how we interrogate our prisoners. We should care about how we treat other people’s religious beliefs and sacred objects. We should care because every human being deserves respect. That is the golden rule, isn’t it? Mark 12:31. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
We should care because caring makes us better. Every government, every military, every group of people that exists is bound to misstep, to make human mistakes, to create human atrocities. What makes this country great is the fact we examine those mistakes. We figure out why it was wrong, how it happened and how to prevent it from happening again. We care enough to change, and that’s how we keep improving.