I don't celebrate Veteran's Day. And each year I'm asked why. So, in advance of the day, let me lay out my thinking here.
Veteran's Day in the US has its roots in Armistace Day. Armistace Day was remembered on the 11th day of the 11th month each year, as a reminder of those who died in the violent Great War (World War I). The idea in Armistace Day wasn't to glorify the dead, but to mourn them. The idea of Armistace Day was to reject that "old lie; Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (to quote Wildred Owen's poem that quotes Horace: "It is sweet and right to die for your country").
It is a lie, of course, for Christians. Because Veteran's Day is predicated not on mourning dead and praying for peace. It is the lie that the dead we mourn sacrificed themselves for peace. For Christians, there is only one sacrifice that brings peace, through the forgiveness of sins like violence -- that's the sacrifice of Jesus. Veteran's Day is the perpetuation of the "old lie" that peace may be had any way other than through Jesus.
Veteran's Day is "the old lie" that murders truth in politics. For example, we mourn our fallen soldiers from World War II, believing they sacrificed for peace in the name of "Justice", but that war was unjust. Because the Allies insisted on unconditional surrender. In the Crusades, getting the Holy Land back was the goal, and any means could be used to achieve it. World War II was a crusade. The firebombing of Tokyo by Doolittle and the carpet bombing in Germany, especially by the British, demonstrated that. Those actions were also not in keeping with just-war theory, since they involved the intentional killing of civilians. Think Dresden.
I'm not trying to take away from "bravery" or "devotion to duty" by the soldiers. I'm only insisting that Christians give those Christian content. As a pacifist, people always ask about Romans 13 ["Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience"]. But the answer is in Romans 12, which says to do good to your enemy and to overcome evil with good. In World War II, after all, there were many Catholics and Lutherans in Germany who used Romans 13 to justify fighting for the Nazis.
Romans 13 isn't about the universal submission to the nation-state. It's about submission as Christians who follow Jesus in the way of Peace with Justice.
I'm a pacifist not because peacemaking is something I can consider because I follow Jesus. I'm a pacifist because following Jesus is making peace in the world. Anything less is "the old lie". Because I have taken up the cross with Jesus, nonviolence is inescapable, because Jesus is Lord.
Because I don't celebrate Vegeran's Day, I'm often accused of being "unAmerican". This criticism used to bother me, until I became convinced Bonhoeffer is right: "Liberal democracies cannot help but lead to godlessness and the subsequent deification of humanity, which is the proclamation of nihilism".
Say what?!?
Liberal democracies require a certain ethos to sustain them. Ask Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. For example, Franklin: "We have given you a republic, if you can keep it" (my emphasis). America, though, has, over the past three or four decades, fallen to the "iron law of oligarchy". Bonhoeffer seems to me to have been prophetic in this way.
The trouble with being Christian is, again, that Jesus is Lord. The Kingdom Jesus brings is universal, and so the petty lines we draw on maps are inconsequential. Jesus is Lord. Which is to make laughable our attempts to foist rule and deify ourselves. (Psalm 2 is here a political criticism.)
So, if confessing "Jesus is Lord" makes me an outsider to the American political experiment, so be it. The same accusation was made of the early Christians by Rome (the book of Revelation comes immediately to mind). I'm in good company there.
I won't celebrate Veteran's Day, again this year. Because Jesus is Lord.