Basic training

Basic Training
November 24, 2010 posted by Chaplain Kathie ·

“Freedom triumphant in War and Peace” is a nice thought but often impossible to find, yet we are only willing to glorify the victories while avoiding any unpleasantries connected to combat. We wave flags and send them off to war expecting they will be trained properly to join the “best military in the world” and win. We don’t want to hear about the wounded. The wounded can do nothing for us. We want to avoid any obligation we have to take care of them. We don’t want to hear about how many were killed any more than we want to hear about how many they had to kill to do their jobs. We don’t want to hear any kind of complaints about what happens to them after war because it is over as far as we’re concerned. They were given clothes, food, shelter and supplied with all the weapons they needed and that was all we owed them. That was all we wanted to know.

The bronze Statue of Freedom by Thomas Crawford is the crowning feature of the dome of the United States Capitol. The statue is a classical female figure of Freedom wearing flowing draperies. Her right hand rests upon the hilt of a sheathed sword; her left holds a laurel wreath of victory and the shield of the United States with thirteen stripes. Her helmet is encircled by stars and features a crest composed of an eagle’s head, feathers, and talons, a reference to the costume of Native Americans. A brooch inscribed “U.S.” secures her fringed robes. She stands on a cast-iron globe encircled with the national motto, E Pluribus Unum. The lower part of the base is decorated with fasces and wreaths. Ten bronze points tipped with platinum are attached to her headdress, shoulders, and shield for protection from lightning. The bronze statue stands 19 feet 6 inches tall and weighs approximately 15,000 pounds. Her crest rises 288 feet above the east front plaza.
A monumental statue for the top of the national Capitol appeared in Architect Thomas U. Walter’s original drawing for the new cast-iron dome, which was authorized in 1855. Walter’s drawing showed the outline of a statue representing Liberty; Crawford proposed an allegorical figure of “Freedom triumphant in War and Peace.” After Secretary of War Jefferson Davis objected to the sculptor’s intention to include a liberty cap, the symbol of freed slaves, Crawford replaced it with a crested Roman helmet.
Freedom

When their bodies return home in a casket with a flag over it, concealed under it is our guilt.
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Basic training