From an address delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1895, at a meeting called by the graduating class of Harvard University:
"I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use." |
Oliver Wendell Holmes statement above validates Koenigsberg's theory of warfare. According to Holmes, the "faith is true and adorable" that leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a "blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use."
What is "adorable," according to Holmes, is simply the willingness of a young man to throw his life away; to die. Doesn't matter what the cause is. Doesn't matter what the soldier is dying for.
As long as men die for something--leaders and populace (and historians) are pleased. "Something to kill and die for," filling the pages of our "history books."
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