Every November, we pause for a day to honor veterans. The speeches are polished, the flags are folded tight, and the same well-meaning phrases echo across small-town squares and big-city stages alike: “Thank you for your service.” “Freedom isn’t free.” The one I hate the most, “ultimate sacrifice…”
They’re good words — but sometimes, they ring hollow. Because for many of us who spent the last twenty years or more fighting America’s endless wars, those phrases don’t quite fit anymore.
We’ve seen what freedom costs. And more importantly, we’ve seen who profits.
The Old Lie, Repackaged
The Roman poet Horace wrote, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” — It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.
Two thousand years later, British soldier-poet Wilfred Owen called that phrase “The old Lie.” He wrote it in the mud of World War I’s trenches, surrounded by gas, blood, and propaganda. It’s the same lie every empire tells its youth before sending them into the meat grinder: that death in service to the empire is noble, glorious, and righteous.
But the Roman legions didn’t die for liberty — they died for Caesar. The British soldiers didn’t die for democracy — they died to keep the sun from setting on the Crown. And American troops? Too often, we’ve died for politicians, defense contractors, and foreign interests that didn’t even pretend to love us back.
War Is a Racket
Marine General Smedley Butler, one of the most decorated men in U.S. military history, said it bluntly after retiring in 1935:
“War is a racket. It always has been.”
He wasn’t wrong then, and he’s not wrong now. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria — twenty years, seven thousand American dead, tens of thousands wounded, trillions spent. And what did we build? What did we win?
A stronger nation? A freer world?
Or just a mountain of debt, a generation of broken bodies, and a defense industry whose stock prices never stopped climbing?
We were told we were fighting terrorism — but somewhere along the way, the mission blurred. Nation-building, regime change, humanitarian intervention — the labels kept shifting, but the bodies kept piling up.
The Empire We Swore to Defend
We swore an oath to defend the Constitution — not to police the world. But America, like Rome and Britain before it, has drifted into empire. Our flag flies on 800 bases across the planet. Our politicians lecture about “world order” while our veterans line up for health care that never comes.
We’ve entangled ourselves in every border dispute, every coup, every “crisis of democracy” that our media tells us demands American intervention. And now, talk of a “rules-based international order” sounds eerily like the blueprint for a one-world government — one run by bureaucrats and bankers, not by free citizens.
Empires always claim they’re spreading peace, justice, and civilization. Until they collapse under the weight of their own arrogance and internal corruption.
The Cycle Never Ends
World War I was called “the war to end all wars.” Twenty years later, the world was burning again. Since 1945, “peace” has meant permanent deployment. Cold wars, proxy wars, covert wars, drone wars — war without victory, war without end.
Every generation swears it will be the last to bury its youth for lies. Every generation fails.
I’m not bitter. None of us who came home should be. We made our choices, and we did our duty. But we’re aware. We see the pattern. We see how history rhymes — and how easily our children could be sold the same slogans, the same parades, the same “noble cause.”
A Different Kind of Service
Maybe the best way to honor veterans isn’t just with flags and parades — but with honesty.
Honor us by telling the truth about why we fought.
Honor us by demanding accountability from the powerful.
Honor us by breaking the cycle — by teaching our children that patriotism doesn’t mean blind obedience to political ambitions.
Because the truest service — the kind Christ modeled — wasn’t about conquering nations. It was about serving others, speaking truth to power, and laying down one’s life for friends, not for empire.
“Greater love has no one than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13
That verse doesn’t glorify death — it dignifies sacrifice with purpose. And that’s the antithesis to the old lie.
The old lie will always sound poetic. It always has. But maybe, this Veterans Day, we can start telling a new truth:
That the most noble act of service isn’t dying for empire — it’s living for liberty, for truth, and for the people God entrusted us to protect.
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Very well said. Someone once said “In war, truth is always the first casualty.” There have been too many feeble justifications made for America’s incessant involvement in wars we never intended to win, beginning with Korea, followed by Vietnam and more recently Iraq and Afghanistan.