Rosary for Angelo Zawaydeh

As I look around, I see many people of different ranks, ethnicities, languages, countries of origin, and faiths. I ask myself why these good people and good families are here tonight in this our Church of St. Thomas More?  

I find the answer speaking out from the living soul of Angelo Zawaydeh.  

Angelo made us all equal: When confronted by the death of a young person, when confronted by the ultimate sacrifice, it does not matter whether you are an officer, a senior citizen, a congressman, a senator, a simple business man or woman, a mother, father, brother or sister, or a student. Angelo renders us all equal as we mourn with great respect, his short life.   

Angelo chose to go to Iraq, as his mother told the News agencies, because he believed that he was doing was the right thing.  

He did not think of a war against an enemy; he did not think of killing anybody. He did not go to show off, to get money, or to escape life. In his mind, he thought that he could not stand by without doing something for the country that he loves, the USA.  Our children, when they make their choices, do so often without accepting any advice from parents or families. They make up their mind to do what they believe is the right. 

 Some people may say that he had been brain washed by military slogans or recruiters. For Angelo, again, as his mother said: "He believed what he was doing was the right thing". This is the dilemma of our lives: "To believe that we are doing the right thing." We are not here to argue why he went to Iraq or why he died. We are here to admire a sincere choice made by a sincere person. He chose to go although he knew deep inside that he might die. He chose to go when he knew that a lot of soldiers at his age had died before and die everyday. He chose to go when he knew that a lot of Iraqi people were also dying on a daily basis. Nobody pushed him to got, he chose to go.  

Yes, this is what Angelo, 19 years old, has taught us all: It does not matter which religious tradition you are from or if you have no religious tradition; it does not matter which country is your country of origin, or which second language you speak, for we are all equal, and we are all called to make a certain choices in our lives for which we must bear all responsibility. 

I hope by now you can answer for yourselves the question of why you came here tonight and why you will perhaps return tomorrow for Angelo’s funeral. We are in the house of God where Jesus himself made the ultimate choice to give his life for Humanity. The cross was " a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles ...but the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor. 1: 23-24). 

The sacrifice of Christ for humanity is the example for Christians of the most ultimate sacrifice. ”I did not come,” Christ said, “but to offer my life in sacrifice for the world.” This choice of Christ was and will pose the question of why he would go through all his pain and suffering to save us. 

What we celebrate today, sorry to use the word celebrate, yes, what we celebrate today, as strange as this celebration might be, is that rather than, as in the past, having a regular army prepared by many years of training and with a clear mind to defend the security of a country, we live today in a world where just a choice to love a country leads our children, with little training, only a few months, to be sent to the ultimate sacrifice. This is what is happening for many of our dear 18-, 19-, 20 year- old children who loved their own country so much that they were offered as a sacrifice. Thousands of young soldiers had died or are permanently handicapped. 

The cost has been high, not just for those who lost their lives, but for those whom they left behind: parents, families, friends, fiancés, and mates. I saw it in our Arab-American Community, the cost is so high, when many times we are mistreated by the media because we are Arabs, and we find many times our love for America as Americans ridiculed or denied and we find many questions asked about our integrity and our patriotism. The cost is high because our children are dying as Americans in and outside the US for the US and our children are also dying as Arabs in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. There is also a cost for those who do return; a cost to them and their families: the sacrifices they continue to make to this day as they live with their memories of the horror of war and life on maneuvers. The cost has been and continues to be beyond the comprehension of all but the few who have been involved in combat. 

So those of us Arab-Americans here this evening need to have the strength of character and integrity to demonstrate to those around us by the way we act and behave, by our success as families, as business men and women, and by our way of life that we too are serving this our country and we like others, we are placing the needs of others before ourselves. 

The most poignant reminder of war is that we came here to the US to live in peace and work as instruments of love, sharing, and cooperation. We have had enough of suffering from wars in our home countries so that now we want peace and prosperity in our second country, America. 

Angelo remains for us as a haunting sound of war, and his sacrifice urges us to pray better for a just peace in the world, to work toward a better understanding of our sharing to make from this country a better place, and to serve better in placing the needs of others before our own.

--Father Labib Kobti