Memorial Day is the one holiday that depresses me. It’s is not a day for parades, or marching bands, or any kind of celebration. It’s a day that should be spent in contemplation of brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for the country. It should be a day spent reflecting on how we can keep from sending future generations off to die in some foreign land.
I will spend the day putting flowers on my fathers grave. I will pass my uncles tombstones. They went off to fight Hitler, and Tojo, and made the world safer.
I will also pass the graves of some fallen comrades, who lost their lives in my war, Viet Nam, where over 58,000 Americans, and over 4 million Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians, sacrificed their lives because of the clueless policies, regarding the world outside our shores, of leaders like JFK, LBJ and Nixon.
It seems to me we are far to willing to send our sons, and daughters, off to fight and die, without asking why. Our leaders wave the flag, and beat the war drums, and Johnny goes marching off. I really do hate the idea “Your country, right or wrong.”
The only meaningful way we can honour the sacrifice these fallen patriots made is to do all we can to see that future generations won’t join them. We won’t, at least not in my lifetime. That prospect depresses me greatly.
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May 23, 2009 at 2:54 am
lovewillbringustogether
i’m sure we share similar views on the subject of War, Ed – particularly on the trait of our so-called leaders who ensure they are furthest from the action when the bullets fly and the bombs drop but who have no fear when it comes to using the pen that commits death to so many – friend and foe alike.
And the way they shamefully ensure that Truth is the FIRST casualty in each and every war ensuring we support them through propaganda and downright perversion of the true ‘cost’ to us all of any war.
Once again it is the poorest who pay the greatest cost while the rich profit from wars. (And i mean within your country, every bit as much as in others)
ALL of us need to understand that – they don’t go to war to defend our freedoms as much as their own and the rights of arms dealers and arms producers to make obscene amounts of wealth.
Remembering with you all those ‘flowers’ that ended before their time.
<B
May 24, 2009 at 12:56 pm
edfromct
We do share the same hatred of war. In reading your comment I immediately thought of the Bob Dylan song, Master of Wars.
May 25, 2009 at 12:02 am
lovewillbringustogether
My Aunt who passed away last Nov was the person who most influenced my love of learning growing up as a child.
i recall sitting in her living room listening to Joan Baez songs in the 60’s when i was around 5 or 6 and Master’s of War was one on her album!
As indeed was where have all the flower’s gone.
Good times. In some ways
<B
May 25, 2009 at 8:05 pm
edfromct
Bob Dylan’s insightful words, and Joan Baez’s beautiful voice, one of the great combinations in music.
Woody Guthrie to Pete Seeger (who wrote “Where have all the flowers gone) to Bob Dylan. Passing the torch of social responsibility.
I can’t think of anyone since Dylan who has had that kind of impact.
The first song of Joan Beaz’s I remember listening to is the beautiful love song “Plaisir d’Amour”
May 25, 2009 at 7:24 am
Indian Lake Papa
Very well said Ed, Very well said. What a waste of mankind!
May 25, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Rain
War is sad and meaningless. How long will we continue to kill one another just because we don’t see eye to eye…?
May 25, 2009 at 7:20 pm
edfromct
Rain & Papa I don’t see where anyone has come up with an answer for how we can resolve our differences without fighting.
My hope is that some future generation will learn that peaceful negotiations is a much smarter way to settle disputes. It will happen when the people of the world finally realize we are all part of one family, the human family, not Jews or Muslims, black or white, Americans or Iranians.
May 27, 2009 at 10:00 am
danielle
I am so thankful for our country…for those who served and gave: you, your dad, my dad, your uncles, grandfathers.
May 27, 2009 at 5:53 pm
edfromct
I am also very thankful I was born in America. Our country is the land of opportinity. The sacrifices of heros from the past has perserved that opportunity for future generations.
We can honor our fallen by learning from the past, and taking steps to ensure that future generations don’t have to make that same sacrifice.