Once Again

I guess it's becoming my fate to listen to the poem "It is the Soldier" recited on Memorial Day.  It was recited last year and I had the following comments:

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 our 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.

I find it hard to accept that this poem was written by a priest, Father Denis Edward O'Brien.  Aren't priests supposed to be preaching the gospel of Christ, which champions peace above war?