Honor
By Steve the Pilot | October 20, 2023
I’m sitting on my balcony overlooking the old Greek port of Chania on the island of Crete. It’s been thousands of years since the ancient Greeks roamed this area but they had that idea of democracy and did so with the concept of honor. Great democracies have risen and fallen with the value of honor or lack of it.
What is honor? Honor is a virtue, a person who has honor strives to do things in the morally correct way and if things don’t work out, then takes responsibility for their actions. Honor seems to be in short supply in our current society. From our Presidents, to our government employees, to companies and those who are supposed to uphold it, it’s in short supply.
Our military is supposed to be the holder, the last bastion shall we say for honor, so what’s been going on at the top?
Many of us through the centuries have served our country honorably. Millions have perished protecting the rights and freedoms in our founding documents honorably. You see them buried at Arlington and Normandy, and you see them in the numerous national cemeteries spread out throughout this great land.
On one layover I was wandering about the old Presidio grounds in San Francisco, I came upon the San Francisco National Cemetery. While it looked like any other national cemetery, except with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge, it was a poem that was etched into the stones as you approached the entrance that really caught me. It was by Archibald MacLeish, this has become the poem I read every Memorial Day.
The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say, We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say, We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.
They say, We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
They say, Our deaths are not ours: they are yours: they will mean what you make them.
They say, Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say: it is you who must say this.
They say, We leave you our deaths: give them their meaning: give them an end to the war and a true peace: give them a victory that ends the war and a peace afterwards: give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.
What is that motivation to serve and put yourself in harms way? There are families where generation after generation have served, honorably. As the West Point motto says, “Duty, Honor, Country!”. An incredibly boiled down statement but it says it all. I look at that statement as the three legged stool for being a good citizen.
Duty: We each have a duty to serve for our fellow citizens, that can take many forms not just joining the military.
Honor: Well, that’s the focus here today…
Country: We need to keep our country and pass it on better than how we found it. While it comes last in the words, we have nothing without it.
I’m not a writer, I write when things bang around in my head long enough that I have to just get them out. I’m writing because I love my country, I love all our states (I’ve been to each plus many territories), I love its construct, its differences, those men 250 years ago were brilliant. They devised a system to protect us from human nature’s bad tendencies or to at least slow them. A continuing issue has been the state of our military and the low recruitment of its citizens.
One of my favorite podcasts is Real Clear Defense “Hot Wash”. They do a great job on all sorts of subjects connected to the military, from recruitment, history, POW/MIA, and so much more, I highly recommend it. A month or so back they had an episode on the military recruiting crisis. It brought back the issue of honor I’d been stewing about since the debacle of the Afghanistan pullout. Recently I read General Milley’s farewell address. I say, good riddance, long over due….
If you read my brother Bill’s Opa Octoberfest column you got the part about our dad. I’m the second generation but third in my family to join the military.
Our older brother was a Surface Warfare Officer, followed by an anti-submarine helicopter pilot in the Navy. I was commissioned by my brother and received my first salute from my father, it was one of the proudest days for our family.
I went off to training and when Desert Storm came around, I ended up in Riyadh, my father was in Jeddah and my brother was on a ship at sea. My mom was never in the military but there’s no doubt with a husband and two sons in harms way, she served.
Receiving his first salute from his father.
So you do your time, you’ve given back to your country but once a military man it’s always in you, from hospital corners to gig lines it’s there. As an officer, there’s that code, that code of honor, they instill it in you from day one and it slowly sticks.
By tradition, the first salute received as an officer requires the new 2nd Lieutenant to give the saluting Enlisted a silver dollar. Completing a great day in our family.
Which brings me to the issue…
I have twins sons, Eagle Scouts, very sharp, sharper than me, so I wanted at least one of them to continue the tradition of our family serving our country. As they were looking at colleges I got them started on the process of applying for a ROTC scholarship. They started but really weren’t interested so I had to let it go. I figured I would work on them again towards graduation. I’d have them go to Officers Training School instead of ROTC but we never got there. The Afghanistan debacle happened, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley got in the way.
Honor, honor from our top leaders is the leg that is missing on that three legged stool. Those two (Austin & Milley) either came up with that bad plan, implemented a good plan poorly or failed to convince the President that it was a bad plan. Anyway you slice it, they implemented the failure, got our sons and daughters killed and if they had any sense of decency or “honor” would have resigned. No one has been held accountable and they are responsible. Austin & Milley will not look good in the history books.
Citizens see this lack of honor, they watch it and make decisions from it. So it is not surprising that there are a lot of families who are now skipping a generation of service, there will be more….
I never brought up joining the military again to my sons. I know what serving meant and did for me but I know it is the best course. As I said in my first column, my boys are not experiments nor are they fodder for our leaders, they are “my” sons. I did my best to raise them with honor and I would never hand them over to those who don’t have it.
God, Family, Country… in that order.
-30-
Steve the Co-Pilot flying the KC-135R air refueling tanker during Desert Storm.
Steve the Pilot was born and raised on Chicago’s North Side and raised his family there before they were driven out by crime and political indifference of crime on taxpayers.
He wrote about leaving the city he loved in a moving essay called “Anatomy of My Departure.”
Comments 22
Hm!!!!!!!!!! HONOR. There is something that I do not see much anymore, respect for one another and especially the Seniors, the young today do not seem to know what that is. Love one another Christ said. We try to do just that, and sometimes it is hard because many do not abide by the rules of God. We came to America for the American Dream, learned the language, the Constitution of these once Great States, and kept our values and morals that our Parents tough us. Today they come in droves for free stuff, and want to turn America into their own Countries, and the Government allows it. When people elect the element of the 4 Liberal Women in Congress, and they demand we change America I feel we are doomed. America is not the Country we raised our young in today they young have turned against the Government and the people and the rest of it watch in horror as to what is happening to the Country we grew up in. We have allowed this to happen by Voting the wrong people in Government and we all know that our Votes have not be counted in many instances and the have taken our Vote away. HONOR JOHN PLEAE KEEP WRITING ABOUT THIS ONCE BELOVED COUNTRY AND HONOR AND RESPECT FOR ALL PEOPLE THAT ASSIMILATED AND BECAME AMERICAN. TIME WE TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK IF NOT WE ARE DOOMED AND THE YOUNG HAVE NO CLUE THEY ONLY WANT THE MONEY THE BABY BOOMERS HAVE. SO SAD.
Thank you Helen for your excellent blog. So very true!
Steve,
Thank you for your service and those who in your family served with honor, pride in being an American. I also served as a yeoman, in what I believed was the greatest Navy in the world, during the Reagan years.
Archibald MacLeish’s “The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak” is a vivid reminder of the final sacrifice of our military. I pray that the current administration memorizes the words and remembers their oath of office.
In God We Trust.
As a daughter/niece of WWII veterans, “Honor” was instilled in us. Mr. Kass, please continue to write and other guests about Honor and Love of country (as broken as it seems today). What we see happening in our nation is heart breaking in so many ways, but there is hope. Our family is proud to have a number of high school graduates signing up to the Army/Navy. God Bless them and keep them safe. God Bless our Nation.
Outstanding piece! Thank you for your service and your observations.
As a Navy veteran, with a Marine veteran son, I know exactly whereof you speak. That is is why I left Chicago for East Tennessee. The Democrat Party has become something unrecognizable. Something foreign and alien in attitude and political philosophy. If you live in a state where the Dems have little or no political power, you will come to appreciate the meaning of Duty, Honor, Country. Unfortunately, Illinois is not one such state. It used to be.
During the fall of 2017, a number of national veterans organizations worked with Georgetown University to establish and publish a Veteran’s Creed. The intent of this effort was to inspire all military veterans to continue to serve after returning from active duty and to lead in providing service to their community, state, and nation.
Here is The Veteran’s Creed:
1) I am an American Veteran.
2) I proudly served my country.
3) I live the values I learned in the military.
4) I continue to serve my community, my country and my fellow veterans.
5) I maintain my physical and mental discipline.
6) I continue to lead and improve 7) I make a difference.
8) I honor and remember my fallen comrades.
Extremely well said. Thank you.
Thank you for your Service. I was taught honor at a very young age as I have decendents that fought in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and World War II. It seems honor is no longer taught in the United States. John, I hope you continue to have your columns about this subject as it is the basis of our Country and I would like to continue to honor those risking their lives for our freedom.
God Bless you for your service, Steve!
It is only with virtue a free society and culture can effectively sustain and govern itself. Honor, courage, and sacrifice rooted in unchangeable moral certainties and objective truth in viewing the world are critical to sustaining our country and traditions of our culture.
The American Legion America’s largest veterans organization, concludes every one of its many thousands of monthly, quarterly, or national meetings with the following message:
“Till we meet again let us remember our obligation to our country can be fulfilled only by the faithful performance of all duties of citizenship. Let service to the community, state and nation be ever a main objective of The American Legion and its members. Let us be ever watchful of the honor of our country, our organization and ourselves, that nothing shall swerve us from the path of Justice, Freedom and Democracy….”
Thank you for your service and the service of those who came before you. I don’t blame your sons one bit for their decision. Our military, once the greatest in the world, has become a woke mess. As you said, the honor has been driven out of the military and no one is being held to account.
Pray for America.
Thank you for your, and your family’s service. Honor is a word not used much any more. Wish it was taught again. “God, Home, and Country!”
Thank you Steve for this beautifully written analysis and pointing out the lack of honor in our country’s current leadership. I hope we can find our way back but fear it’s too late.
yupppp, concur.
“Honor is a virtue” and today it is “in short supply”. Duty, Honor, Country and God, Home, Country: these words have meaning and without them we have nothing. Thank you for your Service to our country and thank you for writing.
Milley and Austin are not examples of how fine our military personnel are. They are just corrupt politicians. No dignity, no honor and no loyalty to their troops.
They lost the respect of most Veterans and active duty people when they surrendered their honor to the politicians. I hope Hades is ready for their tarnished hearts and souls. The woke military
is something I cannot fathom. When we served the military was a meritocracy, the best led.
Sadly, the new leaders are more interested in equity than in winning battles. Semper Fi!!!
Len Gassmann
Enjoyed your words. Thank you for your service as well as the photos of Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus.
Good thoughts from Steve the Pilot!
I also entered the flying profession with the USAF with the initial spark from my Dad who was a pilot in the late stages of WWII.
I responded to a recent WSJ Editorial “General Milley and the ‘Wannabe Dictator’” with the paragraph below after seeing Gen. Milley’s picture in his dress uniform proudly displaying his medals and wondering if one was for the “successful” Afghanistan withdrawal.
“When I finished reading, I remembered a comment made to me years ago by a former Marine and Air Force pilot (in reference to our wing commander after he just returned from a weekly staff meeting); “I understand how he became a general (politics), I just don’t understand how he became a 2nd Lieutenant (ability)” The words in parenesis I added today for further clarification.”
Huzzah! (Hooray) as the gentleman and ladies used to cheer, in Chicago!
Thank you Steve. Thank you for the poem also.