Supplements

Commentary

By Liz Quirin

Shades of White and Grey

A number of years ago I was invited to be a guest at the Army War College in Carlisle, Penn. It seems the military invited a number of civilians to participate in a week-long seminar with a group of military men and women in the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy who might one day be the generals, admirals or “leaders” of our various branches of the military. We were supposed to bring a sense of the civilians to the group. “Interesting,” hardly describes the week of meetings and interactions with the military folks.

I mentioned the then-named “School of the Americas” now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation to the colonel who was partnered with me, and suddenly I was invited to lunch with a whole group of folks who wanted to know what I knew. Unhappily, I knew too little to rattle anyone very much. It was amazing that a few more or less innocent questions could elicit such swift and widespread response.

The week gave me a small and cursory look at how the military operates. They seemed to see every scenario, every exercise as good or bad, white or black with a rule book to categorize instances with precision and recommended punishment or praise according to a set of rigid standards.

At the end of the week, we were thanked and given a chance to comment on the week’s activities. We all appreciated our chance to see a bit more closely at how these young leaders lived their lives and applied those rules to themselves and the people they supervised. They were good, well-intentioned young people who looked forward to serving their country and possibly, moving up to higher ranks with more responsibility.

When it came my turn to talk, I tried to reinforce what I had said in different ways during the week: Life and events can seldom be categorized as all good or all bad, as all white or all black. We live in a world of greys, always striving toward the white but mindful of the many darker shades we face and find in our lives and those of the people around us. In many cases it can’t be a question of all right or all wrong but how much right or how much wrong we find. (Obviously, some absolutes will always apply.)

For instance, as we condemn the act of abortion, can we not find some compassion for a mother who may believe she lives without any other choice? As we press our pro-life agenda, can we see the person on death row as also a child of God, worthy of prayer? When our older members begin to fade, physically or mentally, we don’t cast them aside as unworthy of continuing to live, do we? The seamless garment of life covers us all from birth to natural death, and we must work very hard to keep its color bright and not drift into a very dark grey.