It is the Soldier

The following poem was read today at a Memorial Day service I attended.

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

While it is important to have a strong military, I think we have gone overboard in this country in our praise of the military. We have a defense budget that will bankrupt us. We 'support the troops' because we know very few who actually serve in the military and, thus, are at risk. The continuous state of war in which we have been engaged for this entire century has hardly any direct impact on our lives, so we and are leaders accept it. There seems to be little effort on the part of our military and political leaders to bring this country back to days of peace. While we rebelled against England to gain the freedoms listed in the poem, the soldier does not grant us these freedoms, the Constitution does.