Gratitude, too, is
a divine calling: Uwe Siemon-Netto
Foreword for Thanks: Giving and Receiving Gratitude for America's Troops;
A Soldier's Stories, A Veteran's Confessions and A Pastor's Reflections
Foreword for Thanks: Giving and Receiving Gratitude for America's Troops;
A Soldier's Stories, A Veteran's Confessions and A Pastor's Reflections
Edgar Shirley Welty, Jr. is a minister in the United Church
of Christ, a
Reformed denomination. He has also served two Lutheran parishes as a pastor, and
this, I posit, is reflected in the present book. For one of the most compelling
Lut heran doctrines holds that every Christian has a divine calling to serve his
neighbors in all his worldly endeavors. If he does so in a spirit of love, Luther said,
the Christian renders the highest possible service to God and is therefore a member
of the universal priesthood in His secular realm where He reigns in a hidden way
through His masks, namely us.
“Glorious works He does through us,” Luther exulted in his commentary on
Genesis 29:1-31, explaining man’s many divine vocations, “all completely secular and
heathenish works.” By that Luther meant any of the tens of thousands of callings in the
temporal realm, from milking cows and plowing fields to performing household chores
and raising children, from learning, teaching, engineering, and doing research, from
governing communities and nations to fighting wars on behalf of a government that owes
its authority to God (Romans 13).
Reformed denomination. He has also served two Lutheran parishes as a pastor, and
this, I posit, is reflected in the present book. For one of the most compelling
Lut heran doctrines holds that every Christian has a divine calling to serve his
neighbors in all his worldly endeavors. If he does so in a spirit of love, Luther said,
the Christian renders the highest possible service to God and is therefore a member
of the universal priesthood in His secular realm where He reigns in a hidden way
through His masks, namely us.
“Glorious works He does through us,” Luther exulted in his commentary on
Genesis 29:1-31, explaining man’s many divine vocations, “all completely secular and
heathenish works.” By that Luther meant any of the tens of thousands of callings in the
temporal realm, from milking cows and plowing fields to performing household chores
and raising children, from learning, teaching, engineering, and doing research, from
governing communities and nations to fighting wars on behalf of a government that owes
its authority to God (Romans 13).
In his treatise, Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved, 2
Luther compared the combatant’s chores with those of surgeons.3 He went on, In the
same way I think of a soldier fulfilling his office by punishing the wicked,
killing the wicked, and creating so much misery, it seems an un-Christian work
completely contrary to Christian love. But when I think how it protects the
good and keeps and preserves wife and child, house and farm, property and honor
and peace, then I see how precious and godly this work is; and I observe that
it amputates a leg or a hand, so that the whole body may not perish.4
In the summer of 1987, I was a middle-aged seminary student fulfilling
my Clinical Pastoral Education requirement at the VA Hospital Center in St.
Cloud, Minn. I asked to work as a chaplain intern primarily with Vietnam
Veterans, because I had covered the Vietnam War as a staff correspondent of
West German newspapers over a period of five years. I had accompanied U.S.
soldiers into combat. I had been with them when they were wounded or killed.
Yes, there were dysfunctional units like the platoon led by Lt. William Calley that
slaughtered unarmed civilians in My Lai, but such units ere not representative of
the mass of American military men in Vietnam. Luther had harsh words for
rowdy killers such as Calley’s: and strike and kill of a soldier. There are some who abuse this office needlessly simply because they want to. But that is the fault of the
persons, not of the office… They are like mad physicians who would
needlessly amputate a healthy hand just because they wanted to.5
Half millennium ago, then, Luther described precisely what happened in Vietnam
in the nineteen sixties. Many times I saw GIs risking and often sacrificing their lives to
protect civilians. I was with them when they chased Vietcong fighters who by massacring
entire families had executed a well-defined strategy of a totalitarian regime. Almost all
the soldiers I accompanied into combat exercised their “office,” as Luther called it, in a
manner that was “godly and as needful and useful to the world as eating and drinking or
any other work.”
Then my editors posted me to New York and Washington. At virtually every
fancy cocktail party I attended in these cities I heard the cliché: “Vietnam veterans, my
least favorite minority.” Across the country, I covered huge demonstrations of young
Americans chanting “Ho-Ho-Ho-Chi-Minh,” and waving the Vietcong flag: red and blue
with a yellow star in the center. This banner was as offensive to me as the swastika was
to those who witnessed Nazi atrocities in Germany, for it reminded me of the bodies of
hundreds of women and children in a mass grave in Hué, all slaughtered because they
belonged to a class that could not be expected to welcome a Communist revolution.
The veterans I ministered too told me even worse stories: Every one of them was
accosted as a baby killer, usually by women, within the first 24 hours after their return
home. Most of these former soldiers in my pastoral care groups had lost their wives or
girlfriends to the self-serving pacifist zeitgeist. One was even kicked out of the church he
was baptized and confirmed in. “Before you come back, get yourself some civilian
clothes and wait until your hair has outgrown your crew cut,” his pastor shouted at him
from the pulpit.6
Now, by Luther’s light, if these cruel and self-righteous peace activists were
Christians they, too, had divine vocations, which they did not fulfill because they were
not looking “at the office of the soldier… with the eyes of an adult,” as Luther phrased it.7
They were U.S. citizens and therefore voters, and as voters they were the sovereigns of
this republic. As sovereigns they were called to inform themselves well before taking any
civic action, and this means: inform themselves thoroughly about who these Vietnam
Veterans were, why and by whom they were sent to Vietnam, and how they conducted
themselves there. As sovereigns, too, it was their vocation to give thanks to their soldiers
– yes, their soldiers – for sacrificing so much in the Vietnamese jungles and rice paddies.
In the summer of 1987, I was a middle-aged seminary student fulfilling
my Clinical Pastoral Education requirement at the VA Hospital Center in St.
Cloud, Minn. I asked to work as a chaplain intern primarily with Vietnam
Veterans, because I had covered the Vietnam War as a staff correspondent of
West German newspapers over a period of five years. I had accompanied U.S.
soldiers into combat. I had been with them when they were wounded or killed.
Yes, there were dysfunctional units like the platoon led by Lt. William Calley that
slaughtered unarmed civilians in My Lai, but such units ere not representative of
the mass of American military men in Vietnam. Luther had harsh words for
rowdy killers such as Calley’s: and strike and kill of a soldier. There are some who abuse this office needlessly simply because they want to. But that is the fault of the
persons, not of the office… They are like mad physicians who would
needlessly amputate a healthy hand just because they wanted to.5
Half millennium ago, then, Luther described precisely what happened in Vietnam
in the nineteen sixties. Many times I saw GIs risking and often sacrificing their lives to
protect civilians. I was with them when they chased Vietcong fighters who by massacring
entire families had executed a well-defined strategy of a totalitarian regime. Almost all
the soldiers I accompanied into combat exercised their “office,” as Luther called it, in a
manner that was “godly and as needful and useful to the world as eating and drinking or
any other work.”
Then my editors posted me to New York and Washington. At virtually every
fancy cocktail party I attended in these cities I heard the cliché: “Vietnam veterans, my
least favorite minority.” Across the country, I covered huge demonstrations of young
Americans chanting “Ho-Ho-Ho-Chi-Minh,” and waving the Vietcong flag: red and blue
with a yellow star in the center. This banner was as offensive to me as the swastika was
to those who witnessed Nazi atrocities in Germany, for it reminded me of the bodies of
hundreds of women and children in a mass grave in Hué, all slaughtered because they
belonged to a class that could not be expected to welcome a Communist revolution.
The veterans I ministered too told me even worse stories: Every one of them was
accosted as a baby killer, usually by women, within the first 24 hours after their return
home. Most of these former soldiers in my pastoral care groups had lost their wives or
girlfriends to the self-serving pacifist zeitgeist. One was even kicked out of the church he
was baptized and confirmed in. “Before you come back, get yourself some civilian
clothes and wait until your hair has outgrown your crew cut,” his pastor shouted at him
from the pulpit.6
Now, by Luther’s light, if these cruel and self-righteous peace activists were
Christians they, too, had divine vocations, which they did not fulfill because they were
not looking “at the office of the soldier… with the eyes of an adult,” as Luther phrased it.7
They were U.S. citizens and therefore voters, and as voters they were the sovereigns of
this republic. As sovereigns they were called to inform themselves well before taking any
civic action, and this means: inform themselves thoroughly about who these Vietnam
Veterans were, why and by whom they were sent to Vietnam, and how they conducted
themselves there. As sovereigns, too, it was their vocation to give thanks to their soldiers
– yes, their soldiers – for sacrificing so much in the Vietnamese jungles and rice paddies.
By the logic of the Lutheran doctrine of vocation the
veterans, too, have important
callings: to lovingly serve their neighbors by informing them about their experiences, but
also, as an act of neighborly love, accept the gratitude they received from those who did
not reject them, most likely a majority of their fellow citizens. I leave it to Rev. Welty to
tell us the rest of the story, but in the same manner Luther taught us that soldiers, too, can
be saved, let me be adamant: They deserve our gratitude. And gratitude, too, is a vocation
instituted by God.
Uwe Siemon-Netto, 78, is an international journalist and Lutheran lay theologian.
He earned his Ph.D. in theology and sociology of religion from Boston University.
callings: to lovingly serve their neighbors by informing them about their experiences, but
also, as an act of neighborly love, accept the gratitude they received from those who did
not reject them, most likely a majority of their fellow citizens. I leave it to Rev. Welty to
tell us the rest of the story, but in the same manner Luther taught us that soldiers, too, can
be saved, let me be adamant: They deserve our gratitude. And gratitude, too, is a vocation
instituted by God.
Uwe Siemon-Netto, 78, is an international journalist and Lutheran lay theologian.
He earned his Ph.D. in theology and sociology of religion from Boston University.
He is the author of eight books, including The Fabricated
Luther: Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Modern Myths (St. Louis, 1993,
2007), and Triumph of the Absurd: A Reporter’s Love for the Abandoned
People of Vietnam (Corona, Cal. 2015)
1 Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works, American Edition,
(St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 5:266ff. Hereafter LW.
2 LW, 46:93-137.
3 LW,46:96.
4 LW, 96.
5 LW, 97.
6 q.v., Siemon-Netto, Uwe. The Acquittal of God: A Theology for Vietnam Veterans.
Eugene, Ore., Wipf and Stock, 2008.
1 Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works, American Edition,
(St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 5:266ff. Hereafter LW.
2 LW, 46:93-137.
3 LW,46:96.
4 LW, 96.
5 LW, 97.
6 q.v., Siemon-Netto, Uwe. The Acquittal of God: A Theology for Vietnam Veterans.
Eugene, Ore., Wipf and Stock, 2008.
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