The VA dishonors veterans by reducing eloquent motto to woke mush
Quin Hillyer
The Biden administration’s obsession with “gender inclusivity” has reached the level of farce with its decision to drop the Abraham Lincoln quote that for decades has served as the motto of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
To these woke obsessives, history and tradition don’t matter, nor do great intentions, nor do associations with a man of noble character and his noble cause. All that matters are bland nods to the newest version of the lowest common denominator of performative inclusivity.
VETERANS AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT SCRUBS LINCOLN QUOTE
The VA is dropping the elegant and eloquent Lincoln quote, so famous from his masterful Second Inaugural Address, that it is the nation’s solemn duty “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.” Somewhere along the line, in a perfectly appropriate update to account for so many women joining the armed forces, the motto became: “fulfill President Lincoln’s promise ‘to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan’ by serving and honoring the men and women who are America’s veterans.”
With that, one would have thought the necessary gender inclusivity had been accomplished. The grandeur of Lincoln’s quote still remained intact, but the VA also made clear it was honoring both the men “and women” who served.
But apparently, that wasn’t enough. Apparently, mentioning a “widow” without mentioning a “widower” is sexist… or something. Perhaps one in a gazillion people might, bygosh, take offense (or, more likely, pretend to) at the very notion that combat once was thought to be almost exclusively the province of men. Which it was. That’s just history, and it is history that denigrates nobody. Especially when modernizing it by adding the line about “men and women,” why should anything else need changing? Isn’t there a value in associating the duty to veterans with something as venerable as Lincoln’s masterful paean to them?
To today’s bizarrely sensitive gender language police, though, the gods of political correctness must be appeased. That means no gender distinctions are allowed — even it if means jettisoning Lincoln. Thus, announces the Biden team, the motto will henceforth be this: To “fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.”
How anodyne. How pathetically lacking in euphony. Not to mention lacking in history, tradition, and depth of meaning. To mention Lincoln without quoting him is like using his name as a decorative but fading appendage. Imagine if the British memorialized something by saying “in Churchill’s tradition of fighting everywhere at once” rather than quoting Churchill’s actual, stirring promise that “we shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
The sense of awe is lost, replaced by paltry bureaucratese about “caregivers and survivors.”
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This motto change is indicative of a puny vision and puniness of character. It no longer speaks of mission but of something no more meaningful than a health-insurance transaction.
One would say this is just a small thing, but language isn’t small. Language is important. Congress should pass a bill enshrining the old motto in law rather than leave it to woke bureaucrats to meddle with it. Our veterans deserve a potent homage, not a mealy-mouthed, ahistorical verbal pottage.