h3. By Johann Christoph Arnold
“If we had an out­break some­where in the Unit­ed States, do we not then quar­an­tine that part of the coun­try? And how do you, then, enforce a quar­an­tine? …One option is the use of the mil­i­tary… I think the pres­i­dent ought to have all…assets on the table to be able to deal with some­thing this sig­nif­i­cant.” — Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, news con­fer­ence, Octo­ber 4, 2005
For years, health offi­cials have warned that a vir­u­lent strain of avian influen­za could rapid­ly spread the globe, killing mil­lions. Head­lines about such an out­break now seem to pop up dai­ly, and there is rea­son for increas­ing con­cern. But Pres­i­dent Bush’s recent request to Con­gress, ask­ing for the author­i­ty to call in the mil­i­tary as part of the gov­ern­men­t’s response to such a dis­as­ter, is wrong.
To start with, call­ing in the troops would set a wor­ry­ing prece­dent, and not only because it would be yet one more step to a ful­ly mil­i­ta­rized state.
We already have pub­lic health sys­tems at both the state and fed­er­al lev­els, which, though weak­ened by years of under­fund­ing, could still be quick­ly strength­ened and expand­ed by an infu­sion of con­gres­sion­al aid. These agen­cies have been oper­a­tive for years, and the peo­ple who direct them are trained and expe­ri­enced in deal­ing with infec­tious disease.
This is more than a med­ical issue. Have we learned noth­ing from the recent spate of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters that has wracked our shores? Have we not con­sid­ered that in the end, dis­ease, pesti­lence, and floods might be an inescapable part of life?
I am not sug­gest­ing that we should stand idly by. I myself have chil­dren and grand­chil­dren and friends whom I dear­ly love, and would be the first to call for pro­fes­sion­al med­ical assis­tance should such a dis­as­ter strike my fam­i­ly or com­mu­ni­ty. But aren’t we a lit­tle auda­cious in think­ing, in the after­math of two ter­ri­ble hur­ri­canes, that we can some­how avert or pre­vent such a tragedy?
Quar­an­tine and iso­la­tion may indeed be a nec­es­sary part of our response, but let us not for­get that fam­i­lies and pas­toral care­givers must also be part of the equa­tion when many peo­ple are dying. Does our gov­ern­ment real­ly care for human beings, or does it wor­ry more about the dev­as­ta­tion such a pan­dem­ic could wreak on the glob­al economy?
If wide­spread death is tru­ly immi­nent (some sources sug­gest that 150 mil­lion peo­ple could die of avian flu) would­n’t it be bet­ter to pre­pare our­selves by pay­ing at least some atten­tion to the fact that we all must die one day, and that dying is going to be ter­ri­bly lone­ly, and fright­en­ing, if we are quar­an­tined? We need to con­cern our­selves with this issue because one day death will claim each one of us.
If we die alone, under the con­trol of the mil­i­tary, who will pro­vide the last ser­vices of love for us, and who will com­fort the loved ones we leave behind? Are we going to sit back while we are denied the chance to lay down our lives for each oth­er, which Jesus says is the great­est act of love we can ever per­form? A mil­i­tary response will not bring out the best in peo­ple, but only mag­ni­fy the fear and anx­i­ety we already have about death.
Why are we so ter­ri­bly afraid of dying? Only when we are ready to suf­fer – only when we are ready to die – will we expe­ri­ence true peace of heart. Dying always involves a hard strug­gle, because we fear the uncer­tain­ty of an unknown and unknow­able future. We all feel the pain of unmet oblig­a­tions, and we all want to be relieved of past regrets and feel­ings of guilt. But it is just here that we can reach out and help one anoth­er to die peacefully.
Once we rec­og­nize this, the specter of a world­wide flu epi­dem­ic will not make us fear death, but give us pause to con­sid­er how we can use our lives to show love, while there is still time.
Again, enforced iso­la­tion is wrong: sick and dying peo­ple are often lone­ly as it is, even in sit­u­a­tions where they have a fam­i­ly and friends. How will they feel when the gov­ern­ment forces us to treat them like lep­ers? How will they find com­fort, if they are not even allowed to talk about what is hap­pen­ing to them?
We should see it as a priv­i­lege to stand at their bed­sides at the hour of death, not a dan­ger – even if this means that we are even­tu­al­ly tak­en by the same plague. That is why I feel mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion would be such a tragedy.

Johann Christoph Arnold (“www.ChristophArnold.com”:www.ChristophArnold.com) is an author and a pastor with the Bruderhof Communities (“www.bruderhof.com”:www.bruderhof.com).