Fort Ridgely Cemetery,
Fairfax Minnesota

Millie sat alone, amid rows of folding chairs on the cemetery lawn. Even as a small crowd began to form, she seemed out of place at the Memorial Day service. An officer of the American Legion read names of each of the veterans who had died since records were started following  World War I.

Millie waited to hear the sound of a familiar name,  of her beloved brother buried in that cemetery,  who died in WWII. She would tell me later, how her younger brother had just turned 18, when he was drafted. She remembered how scared and how afraid he was. He didn’t want to go to war. He didn’t want to leave his home and his family, but he went anyway. Only a few short months later, terrible news came, that her beloved brother had died in battle.

Fifty years later, Millie came to the cemetery her brother was buried in. She came to remember him, her cherished brother from her childhood. She came to grieve the years lost, of a young man who gave his life for his country.  

The prophet Micah writes of God’s dream for us, of a time when wars will be no more and  there will be no dead on battlefields.  Tools of war  will be transformed into tools for peace and plenty.

Micah dreams of a day when no more young men and women, go off to war . . . When there are no telegrams, or visitors coming to the door, with a message that cuts the heart in two. It will be a time when men and women no longer suffer the consequences of battles fought decades before, and there are no more bodies maimed or minds distraught.

He writes of the promise of a day, when no more soldiers die.

“God shall judge between many peoples and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they will beat their swords into plowshares and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Micah 4:3