#39 (Bob): Anyone who actually reads knows that Benedict XVI was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from Bavaria. A careful reading of my last post will show that I was referring to the liberation of his nation, Germany, by US forces, when he was a teenager.

I was sort of hoping that President Uchtdorf would be the person the Church sent to meet him in New York. President U. is also German.

Usually, at least one side in any given war is morally in the wrong. I certainly hold no brief for the US Army force that marched to Utah in 1857; one its members, a military veteran from Europe, was so disgusted with them he deserted and joined the Mormons. I have been speaking of the US armed forces as I have known them over the last half century or so. I certainly have no moral qualms about LDS members joining the US armed forces. I don’t think it is any more likely to engage them in immoral behavior than going away to college. And there are in fact a number of LDS around them, and a lot of other people of high character they can join with to uphold morality.

The Pope has spoken of the Americans as liberators of his country, Germany. The Nazis not only enslaved other countries, they enslaved their own people.

Then I was in my Reserve unit C Co 321st Engineers in Northern Utah and 60% of the unit personnel were LDS. I remember the influence they had on me during training meetings. I was proud to be part of that unit.

On active duty, I had 3 members of my platoon that were LDS and how dedicated to their religion and it\’s teachings. They tought me what it meant to be dedicated to a principle.

Now I am out of the Army and have joined the LDS faith. I sitll look back on those individuals as being part of the reason I joined the LDS church. Through their examples and true faith

#32 (Kyle M): Being the armed forces is often disorienting (intentionally so, in basic training). Having people there who share your values and understand your faith can help you have a stable place to stand in all of that chaos.

I once heard a lecture by a man who had studied the soldiers who had best withstood, mentally, the trial of being a prisoner of war (POW) during the Korean War. He mentioned that one distinct group was the Catholics, who would make a cross out of sticks and thread and focus on it as they prayed to remind themselves of who they are. His experiences led him to look into religion, which he lacked at the time, which led him into the LDS Church.

#33, 34 (Bob): I am glad we can agree that having military guardians for a nation is Necessary. As far as whether they are good or moral, I think that if we (Americans) as a nation adopt the belief that the armed forces are only a necessary evil, we will tolerate them having a lack of moral character, and it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have a hard time believing that, for example, Helaman and his Ammonite warriors were evil or immoral. On the other hand, it is clear in Mormon’s narrative that toward the end of his nation, the Nephite armies had lost discipline and morality.

The entire purpose of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the judicial system that enforces it, is to maintain standards of morality and law-abiding behavior among the members of the armed forces. By doing so, we reinforce the desire for goodness and morality among many of the Americans who are in the military, and encourage them to have the courage of those convictions. The congressional oversight of the armed forces constantly makes clear that the Federal government expects the armed forces to maintain standards of morality and good conduct. We get the character of armed forces that we expect.

A few months ago, the New York Times ran a cover story about the number of homicides committed by service members who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, implying that the experience was so traumatic that those “trained killers” had returned as a danger to their fellow citizens. But a basic analysis of the homocide rate for all Americans in the 20s and early 30s demonstrated that the recent combat veterans were only 20% as likely to commit homicide as their non-military peers. In other words, those serving in America’s military today are LESS criminally violent than their counterparts who do NOT volunteer. It is hard to classify a mass of a million people as “good” or “bad”, but at the very least, it seems to me that they are, on average, BETTER people than the average American. The military justice system has to be there to take care of those on the bottom end of the curve, but the vast majority of them are better neighbors than you would find by populating your street with random names out of the phone book.

With respect to the Pope hearing The Battle Hymn of the Republic: He may have been remembering that it was American soldiers who rescued his native country of Germany from a nightmare of totalitarian atheism. The Battle Hymn was written during the American Civil War, and represented the motive for many Union soldiers, that as Christ had “died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” It is the same spirit that animates Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: that America’s legacy as a nation of free citizens needed to be preserved as a beacon to all nations, most of whom still were ruled in 1863 by hereditary kings.

That spirit, of willingness to put their lives on the line to free nations, including the nations of their enemies, has been a theme that characterizes the self-image of the American service member. It has been the reason why America, despite being the dominant military force in the world for the last 50 years, has not sought to build an empire, but a community of free nations. And in doing so, America has made them more hospitable for the eventual spread of the Restored Gospel. Just as the First Century Church of Jesus Christ took advantage of the peaceful movement that the Roman Empire provided, the LDS Church has taken advantage of the freedom among nations that the United States has supported.