Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
I have noted before this that The Maid of Orleans led her Soldiers into the Confessional before she led them onto the Battlefield.
Augustine remarks that the greatest of saints dies a penitent.
A man should not die unshriven.
What is the meaning of this for the Army? It means that the Army in combat is clean. No blame attaches to the Army for doing her job. Indeed her job is her penance, to be done heartily and happily.
On 12 May 1962, General of the Army Douglas Mac Arthur noted in his historic speech to The United States Corps of Cadets regarding Duty Honor Country that, The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training — sacrifice.
He can do this because, as a Soldier doing his duty, he is absolved of sin. The unshriven are unclean, they cannot sacrifice, and therefore they cannot attain maturity, prestige, or honor.
The Army cannot fight if it is not clean. Any fighting the Army would undertake while in an unclean condition would be murder, not war-fighting. An example of that is the Salafi-Shiite Jihad, which is savagery, murder, cruelty for the fun of it. Another example is Socialism.
The clean fight to remove an other’s will to aggress. The unclean fight to enjoy an other’s misery. The clean fight. The unclean brutalize.
These distinguishably different motivations originate in the profane world (pro+fanum, literally, outside the door to the sanctuary). Their consequences also are distinguishably different.
By volunteering to serve, and then by undergoing training and indoctrination, the Army in effect goes through the door to the sanctuary and on to the most important place therein, the confessional, there to enter, and there to come clean. The barbarian horde flops itself outside the door to the sanctuary, there to remain dirty and wreak havoc for the fun of it.
By volunteering to protect his country, a Soldier commits to a purpose higher, deeper, and larger than a selfish one. He is being expansive, grand. Selfless service is the very nature of a Soldier and of Soldiering. It also is the capstone of personhood.
In his very first act as a Soldier — volunteering for service — a Soldier practices sacrifice.
In his very first act as a Soldier, a volunteer crosses over the threshold of the holy sanctuary of The Whole because he wants what is therein, namely, liberation from selfishness.
He heads into rigorous, prolonged training and indoctrination and that is his time in the confessional.
In mastering episodes of training and indoctrination, a Soldier receives absolution from the sin of selfishness.
He leaves the confessional, now clean, free, and ready, to await the call for battle.
When the war tocsin sounds, the Soldier performs his penance, the penance he wanted to perform by volunteering for service in the Army. He finds that penance — war-fighting — savory, all he hoped for by way of life in freedom from selfishness.
A word about indoctrination and penance.
Indoctrination is learning about experiences that have been replicated — proven consistent, true — through the ages in the experience of countless persons.
The Greek word docta means knowledge or learning that is absolutely reliable through and across time and circumstance. A doctrine is something that can survive any amount of scrutiny and is thus worthy of acceptance and belief as well as use in the affairs of men and nations.
For example, the Pythagorean Theorem has been proven true by a myriad of testers. It holds up to serial experiment. The so-called Doctrine of Original Sin (an unhappy locution but sufficient unto the day) also has been observed and thus verified in the experience of countless persons, saints and sages as well as scallawags and scavengers.
Whatever is observable through any number of experiments in any number of places by any number of persons is thereby verified and constitutes a doctrine, a truism which can be relied upon at any time in any circumstance and taught to generations of students as such.
Army indoctrination teachers Soldiers safe, reliable truths about war and Soldiering. Indoctrination occurs in the classroom and on the drill field.
Teaching students late or recent enthusiasms for this or that theory, insight, brainstorm, or ideology is not teaching doctrine because said enthusiasms have not survived generations of scrutiny, experiment, and skepticism. Such teaching may be denoted as advocacy, campaigning, boosterism, propagandizing, tendentious stupidity, or, at best, live-fire testing. It is not teaching, much less indoctrination. Indoctrination is teaching of the tried and true only: actual doctrines, learning guaranteed safe by long, consistent experience.
Penance is fun. A penitent enters upon penance with enthusiasm because they know it further clears them of guilt for selfishness and, more importantly, it fulfills the purpose they had in volunteering for service. Soldiers love to engage in war-fighting. It is their nature. They love every aspect of war, to include especially the aspect of sacrifice. They do this naturally and without compulsion.
War-fighting is a Soldier’s nature and therefore enjoyable to a Soldier. And that enjoyment is penance for the sin of selfishness.
Penance occurs as the actual conduct of war. War-fighting is penitential activity.
This is comme il faut.
A Soldier conducts war-fighting — his penance — eagerly and with relish. He knows he is clean and that doing his duty as a Soldier announces the fact. He has become a man of honor, a man of respect, a man of grandeur, because he has:
1- volunteered for self-less service (his liberation),
2- entered the confessional for training and indoctrination (his perfection),
3- received certification for service (his absolution), and is
4- thereby free cheerfully to conduct war-fighting (his penance) when orders arrive.
The plan is for five posts on the topic A Theology Of The Army:
Introduction
Liberation
Perfection
Absolution
Conclusion
This post is on Absolution.
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God
Update 1: Angelo Codevilla on GA Douglas Mac Arthur: The Tipping Point (PDF)
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
