America’s greater values
Regarding “Individual or indivisible” (Editorial, July 4): President Donald Trump emphasized military might in his Fourth of July address at the Lincoln Memorial. He mentioned other values such as “people risking everything for what they know is right.” However, military strength received an unusual emphasis. As we take a deeper look at our history, we can see that the heroes of American history, without eliminating the need for national defense, expressed a concern for military limits and an emphasis on our ideals.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he emphasized human equality and unalienable rights. He saw the importance of military actions in extreme circumstances, but he was concerned about military limits and was against “standing armies.”
When Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg , the memory and horror of war was everywhere. But he also spoke of the opportunity it provided for a new burst of freedom and a government of the people and by the people that would not perish from the earth. President Dwight Eisenhower, a former World War II general, saw the importance of the military, but he was against military parades that emphasized power and saw dangers in the rise of a military industrial complex. We must have enough military strength, but as the editorial indicated, we need to be careful that what we symbolize on July 4 is consistent with our greater values. Herb Stalllknecht, Brookshire