On Veteran’s Day (Nov. 11), I was sitting on the sofa after dinner relaxing and decided to see what was on the TV.  I came across my favorite Civil War movies, Glory, with Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick.  One of the most accurate Civil War movies of all time, it is the stirring account of the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first all-black regiments in the Union Army.  Broderick (as the young idealistic Colonel Robert Shaw) takes on the task of molding a bunch of misfit, uneducated and undisciplined freed slaves (and free blacks) into a respectable regiment.  The movie has many wonderful plot twists, and how Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington failed to win Oscars for their performances is beyond me.

Perhaps the most touching scene in the movie comes near the end when the 54^th is going to be given the lead in storming an impregnable Confederate fortress, Battery Wagner in South Carolina.  As they march forward to form up for the charge, a white regiment they had earlier clashed with behind the lines gave them a mighty salute and cheer as they realized that these “niggahs” had become their equal in fighting quality and spirit.  Sadly, over half the regiment was killed and wounded in the unsuccessful attack.

And that got me to thinking about our recent election and what it means-that a black man could become president of the United States 143 years after the Civil War was over.  I don’t know whether President-elect Obama is descended from slaves (on his mother’s side) or not, nor does it matter. What matters is that America has finally come to grips with what the Civil War was about.  (Oh, some die-hards in the deep south argue that the War was about “State’s Rights”-but when you peel that onion, you realize that the heart of the argument was about the rights of states-to have slavery as a legal institution!)  I did not vote for Mr.Obama, but he is now my President (or soon will be) and so I will pray for him daily to have wisdom and courage.  May he lead us well in the difficult days ahead.

The exact number of dead and wounded on both sides of the Civil War is unknown, mainly because recording keeping in those days was not exact and most of the Confederate war papers were burned when the Confederate archives building was torched by Confederate sympathizers as Ulysses Grant’s Union army bagged Richmond in April, 1865.  But estimates range from 600,000 to 640,000, with perhaps 3 times that many wounded.  The war lasted just a few days over 4 years-about 1,470 days or so.  That means that the number of Americans (both sides) KILLED in the war averaged at least 408 PER DAY (and it may have been as high as 435 per day).  More Americans were killed in only 10 days of the Civil War than have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2002!  Yet no one, including me, would say the Civil War was not worth it.  435 men a day to free 7 million slaves.  Compare that to 4,000 over 6 years to free about 60 million Iraqis and Afghans.

Anyway, as I thought of all this, and the awesome sacrifice those brave men of the 54^th Massachusetts made at Battery Wagner (and all the other regiments, black and white, who fought for the Union), my heart is stirred by their courage and willingness to give the last full measure of devotion.

Because of them, and millions more like them in our other wars-the Revolution, the War of 1812, the War with Mexico, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, Viet Nam, the 1992 Gulf War, and today’s conflicts, just to name the major ones-I can live a free man today in the best nation on the face of God’s wonderful earth.

Veterans, I salute you and thank you immensely!

This week, if you get a chance, buy lunch for a Veteran.  (When I travel, if I find soldiers in the airport, I always buy their lunch or dinner.  They protest that I don’t have to do that, but I do anyway, and they really seem to enjoy it.  The high point so far was when I bought dinner for a World War II vet and his wife at a Cracker Barrel in New Jersey 2 years ago.  He wept, and I wept as I thanked him for his sacrifice.)