What We Can Have

There can be truth and justice and civility in a civil society.

For if we sacrifice any of the three—in service of achieving any one of the others—the pillars of civil society fall apart.

And then, we become the very monsters of oppression we are fighting to destroy.

June 6, 1944: 70 Years Later

“I’ll see you on the beach!”

And with that, Tom Hanks shepherds us through Steven Spielberg’s 1998 film, Saving Private Ryan, about the D-Day landings and the aftermath of them, for a squad of soldiers.

70 years ago today, the Normandy Landings occurred, without which we would not have the pleasure of blogging for you every day.

D-Day was important as was the aftermath.

The efforts of the Russians on the Eastern Front were in some ways, even more important than the events of D-Day.

Without the Normandy Landings, here are a few things we might have missed in the 20th century:

Postwar economic expansion
The rise of nuclear power
African American Civil Rights
The rights of women being codifed into law
The scourge of Communism
The Internet coming to commercial viability
And so on, and so on, and so on…

It is notoriously difficult to counterfactualize history, because we only know what did happen, and can never know what could have happened.

But to the grandparents and great-grandparents who did lay down their lives on those beaches, on this day, June 6, 1944, we here at HSCT would like to say thank you for laying down your lives on the altar of liberty.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

This Memorial Day…

The history of military service for humanity in general is based in three principles:

Having the courage to die in order to accomplish a hard thing
Having the obedience to follow orders that may make no sense
Having the innocence to be willing to die for the resolution of the arguments of old men.

Memorial Day is more than just a three day weekend to get in your car and go on vacation.

It’s about honoring those who fell and died so that we could sit here at write these words in relative peace in this country.

And as an American who happens to have brown skin and thick lips, I will be forever grateful for the 750,000 men and women who laid down their lives on the altar of liberty to preserve the union.

This Memorial Day, go to a cemetery. Lay out some flowers. And thank veteran of any of the recent wars.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com