Lest We Forget

A Man in Full
June 3, 2008; Page A20

"Next week on Flag Day, Army Private First Class Ross McGinnis would have turned 21 years old. Yesterday, President Bush presented his family with a posthumous Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for courage in combat. It was the fourth time the Medal has been awarded for those who have served in Iraq.

"In the gunner's hatch of a Humvee driving through Baghdad on December 4, 2006, Private McGinnis saw a grenade fly through the hatch, rolling to where it could have injured the four other soldiers inside. In easy position to leap and save himself, McGinnis instead jumped to cover the grenade with his body to shield his comrades.

"The four men he saved were all at the White House yesterday to pay their respects. They and his parents, Thomas and Romayne McGinnis, knew Ross as one who, at 137 pounds and six feet tall, had barely outgrown his boyhood when he joined the Army on his 17th birthday, the first day he was eligible to enlist. The Knox, Pennsylvania native was known not to take things too seriously, the soldiers said – and yet in an instant he displayed the self-sacrifice that defines heroism in battle across generations. Although he didn't grow while he was in the Army, "he seemed to stand a lot taller," his father said. "He was a man."

"All of America's men and women in uniform today are volunteers, and they have answered the call knowing they may be put in harm's way. "Supporting the troops" has become a mantra in our politics, but the true heroism of our soldiers goes beyond the slogans and politics to countless individual acts of courage under fire. At the moment it mattered, in a war worth fighting, Ross McGinnis honored America's finest traditions and our own better natures."

Philanthropy and Happiness

Research from Harvard has validated what most people, especially the philanthropic, already know, that service to others, whether through donating to worthwhile causes or direct giving to individuals, is good for the psyche and good for the soul.

Most of us probably know someone who has spent a lot of time trying to acquire money and then once doing so, rarely have they become really happy; often still trying to either earn more in pursuit of the elusive bluebird, or sidetracking into the pursuit of power, believing it may hold the key.

But neither does and the old saw that “the harder you pursue happiness the harder it is to catch”, still rings true.

Spiritual Professionalism

One of the greatest moments in my life was when I became a Catholic and a most significant step towards that communion was learning of the work of Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, who is now St. Josemaria Escriva.

It was from the writing about Opus Dei, initially Uncommon Faith, which tells of the early development of Opus Dei, which then led me to his writings, and I acquired the Centennial Edition, a collection of all of his published work in nine volumes.

I also acquired the original multi-volume edition of the Catholic Bible, seven volumes for the Old Testament and 12 for the New Testament, which is the best modern translation and commentary I have found, and a project initiated by St. Josemaria and completed by the faculty of the University of Navarra.

This grounding in the precepts of the approach to work and faith—they are forever joined—has been the greatest blessing to me, and with liturgy and contemplation, propels me toward the ever developing work of perfecting my service.

An excellent new book, Virtuous Leadership: An Agenda for Personal Excellence, by Alexandre Havard, Director of the European Center for Leadership Development, addresses this in a focused way, informed deeply by the work of St. Josemaria, and opens his introduction thus:

“Leadership is only superficially about what we imagine. Hearing the word, one thinks of heads of state or government moving nations to action, captains of industry bringing products to market that change our lives, generals leading armies into battle. One supposes it to be an amalgam of ambition, charisma, cunning, know-how, access to money, and a gift for being in the right place at the right time.

“These are talents and qualities and resources leaders can use to advantage, but none of them constitutes the essence of leadership.

“Leadership is about character.

“No, leadership is character.

“There are those who think one must be born to lead—that some have a knack for it and some do not, that leadership is largely a matter of temperament combined with experience. Not everyone can be a Roosevelt or a de Gaulle or a Churchill, they think.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. Leadership is not reserved to an elite. It is the vocation not of the few but the many.” (p. xiii, italics in the original)

The Power of Narratives

Certain narratives get started—regardless of truth—and once they take hold, they become truth, like a famous line from the great western movie (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring James Stewart and John Wayne) "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Great movie and here’s a review.

There is an important narrative that can have impact on the upcoming presidential election—that of the reasons for going to war in Iraq—were they honest or manufactured, the subject of a new book.

Among the early days of Protestantism a favorite narrative was the identification of the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon mentioned in Revelations, and this narrative has staying power as revealed in recent reviews of it in connection to pastoral endorsements of presidential candidates, and it continues to be referenced in books.

The major narrative of today however—in terms of our country’s international standing, in terms of our country’s ability to be the one superpower capable of protecting smaller, weaker nations and capable of protecting the innocent even in countries far away from us—is the narrative that the left keeps trying to float, that we are losing the war on terror, that we should bring all of our troops home, that we should not interfere—even to protect the innocent—in the affairs of other countries.

Fortunately, this president and much of the country, has refused to accept that narrative, and the results have become very visible and success just keeps right on happening, as this article from Weekly Standard recounts.

Special Interests in the Public Square, More

On the occasion of de Tocqueville’s 200th birthday in 2005 many articles speculated about what the country he so loved would look like then to his sophisticated eye.

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who came to this country to write a study of the American prison system, which he did, and he became so enamored of its social and political life that he also wrote one of the best books ever written about our country, Democracy in America, and I would highly recommend the 2000 translation by H. C. Mansfield and D. Winthrop.

One aspect of out country now that would trouble him, and it is one Michael Novak wrote about in 2005, is the change in the association or nonprofit organization, as a voluntary speaking out of the people for their particular interests, to the state sponsored organizations, properly called nongovernmental organizations or NGO’s.

These organizations work from the smallest local government to the largest international one and while appearing to be a voluntary association are often staffed, directed and funded by the particular government that wishes to see its interests represented; and at the very best represent an insidious perversion of the very purpose the voluntary association was originally envisioned, to provide the individual an organized platform to speak out and protect oneself against the organized power of the state.

Special Interests in the Public Square

One of the significant aspects of our democracy that gives virtually every organized group the ability to have impact on the public policy that can shape the life they live, is the freedom to assemble and organize and speak out for your particular interest; whether it be international policy or model airplanes.

Count Alexis De Tocqueville came to America in the early 1800’s, met with many of the founders and wrote one of the most perceptive books ever written about America. Here is but a small part of what he said about voluntary associations—those nonprofits which represent the largest group of special interests.

“Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fetes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools. Finally, if it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate. Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.

“I have since traveled through England, from which the Americans took some of their laws and many of their usages, and it appeared to me that there they were very far from making as constant and as skilled a use of association.

“It often happens that the English execute very great things in isolation, whereas there is scarcely an undertaking so small that Americans do not unite for it. It is evident that the former consider association as a powerful means of action; but the latter seem to see in it the sole means they have of acting.

“Thus the most democratic country on earth is found to be, above all, the one where men in our day have most perfected the art of pursuing the object of their common desires in common and have applied this new science to the most objects. Does this result from an accident or could it be that there in fact exists a necessary relation between associations and equality?”

(Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2000 translation by H. C. Mansfield and D. Winthrop. pp. 489-490)

Iraq, Vietnam & The Church

Many national public leaders, including John McCain, who speak about completing the job we’ve begun in Iraq to bring democracy to the Middle East, and freedom to its people; compare the horrible results of what happened in Vietnam because we didn’t finish the job we went there to do to what would happen in Iraq if we left early.

This post from Chiesa about the struggles of the Catholic faithful to be allowed to practice their religion in Vietnam, is one stark reminder (regarding religious freedom, a core principle of individual freedom) of what happened to that unfortunate country once we left in 1975.

One result was the confiscation of all Catholic Church property in South Vietnam—it had already been confiscated in North Vietnam during the 1950’s—which Vietnamese Catholics are now demonstrating, peacefully, in the streets to have returned to the Church.