Memorial Day & St. Jehanne's Feast

Obviously I'm a little late in all of this. Memorial Day was yesterday, St. Jehanne's was the day before. All the same, here it is.

Though her proper name would have been Jehanne Romee, it eventually mutated into Jehanne d'Arc, Jeanne d'Arc, and somewhere along the line finally turned into Joan of Arc. (Jehanne was the daughter of Isabelle Romee and Jacques d'Arc--daughters traditionally took their mother's names, not their father's). One of the things which Jehanne Romee is famous for--and not belovedly so--would be her counsel--the (typically) triad of voices identified as St. Michael the Archangel, St. Catherine and St. Margaret.
Unfortunately, it seems to be popular to regard St. Jehanne as being simply insane, and legions of armchair psychologists cry "Schizophrenia!" in righteous indignation. This, of course, cannot stand the test of actual research: simply looking into her trial records, and observing the skill with which she navigated the deceptively-phrased questions--see, for example, one of the more famous quotations from her trial for heresy (another story altogether) in which the questioner asked if she was in the state of grace. Answering yes would have had her condemn herself for heresy; answering no would have convicted herself. She responded promptly, "If I am, then may God keep me there, and if I am not, may He put me there." This, and many other instances, demonstrate a verbal skill which cannot be attributed to someone suffering the kind of mental illness so often attributed to her.
Among other things, and as was testified to by many of her comrades, Jehanne was an exceptional military leader both strategically and where motivation was concerned; and the fact remains that, to date, she is the only seventeen year old of either gender to become any sort of high-ranking military official at all, let alone the de facto commander of an entire country's army.

During World War II, the U.S Women's Army Corps came into existence. For all intents and purposes, it was essentially the female branch of the U.S Army. About 150,000 women served in the WAC, and it was only fitting that the patron of the hardworking corpsmen (corpswomen--is that a word?) would be St. Jehanne Romee.
The Navy equivalent of the WAC also took Jehanne as their patron, and to this day, Jehanne Romee, daughter of Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romee, remains a much-loved patron of soldiers, sailors, militants, and the French in general.

Ironically, Memorial Day always used to be on the thirtieth of May--St. Jehanne's feast day. Whether this was by design or not I cannot say, but it was, I think, appropriate.

So, on Memorial Day and May 30 (which are the same day next year), remember all saints and soldiers (servicemen, that is) who have died defending what they love.

Post-Script: I just want to say that Jehanne makes Galileo look like a wimp. The man was under house arrest in Tuscany, but was allowed to leave the manor in order to receive medical treatment...while Jehanne was chained up in a tower, is thought to have been assaulted after her requests to be guarded by women were refused, refused legal counsel, refused the Eucharist and finally burned at the stake all before the age of twenty after the most pathetic excuse for a supposedly ecclesiastic trial ever. But who gets pitied nowadays? That's right, the one who spent eight years in his country home in Italy, receiving visitors until he died of natural causes. Yeah. Can you tell I'm bitter?