Memorial Day
I never know exactly what to say around Memorial Day. I worry that my words will impact a lot of people negatively because I have always believed that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been wrong. That's right, I think that our attacks on Afghanistan after 9/11 were misdirected. Now we turned it around and said we were attacking the Taliban, but truthfully, it was misdirected and misguided.
Anyway, all that being said, when Memorial Day has come around for the last 10 years, I consciously stop and think about the fact that people in my generation and younger are getting hurt, getting killed, are coming home to find they can't readjust. Families are spending every day wondering if their loved one is okay. I always come back to the same thing.
I can't imagine what any of that is like.
I am not a big fan of war. I kind of dig Mark Twain's take on it that essentially, war begets war because it breeds contempt. And I can't be 100% genuine if i say things like, "Well, I appreciate all of this on a patriotic level" because frankly, while there is a lot about being an American that I appreciate, our history is too bespotted with ill deeds for me to be a ra-ra flag waver.
So, in a way, I feel like I am kind of intruding when I mark Memorial Day. But I do stop and take notice, and I try to face the fact that more than 4,000 US citizens have died in Iraq. We just reached 1,000 deaths in Afghanistan. That is more than the number of people who died on 9/11. It's more spread out. It's more distant, somehow, at least to those of us who don't know those people. But it's happening.
I think about my grandfather a lot on Memorial Day. He was a gunner on the USS Nicholas during WWII. I watch documentaries about World War II and see footage of battles in which we know my grandpa was involved. During my life, my grandpa was a kind of scary, bear-like man who sat in 1 of 2 chairs, seldom leaving his house. It's so hard for me to imagine him in the Pacific, shooting down planes, watching men on both sides die. I think I would probably just sit for awhile after going through something like that.
Here is Mark Twain's War Prayer. I think it speaks well to how I feel about war. How I feel on Memorial Day. I mark it. I am full of confusion and contradictions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75dEdZNCI4E
Anyway, all that being said, when Memorial Day has come around for the last 10 years, I consciously stop and think about the fact that people in my generation and younger are getting hurt, getting killed, are coming home to find they can't readjust. Families are spending every day wondering if their loved one is okay. I always come back to the same thing.
I can't imagine what any of that is like.
I am not a big fan of war. I kind of dig Mark Twain's take on it that essentially, war begets war because it breeds contempt. And I can't be 100% genuine if i say things like, "Well, I appreciate all of this on a patriotic level" because frankly, while there is a lot about being an American that I appreciate, our history is too bespotted with ill deeds for me to be a ra-ra flag waver.
So, in a way, I feel like I am kind of intruding when I mark Memorial Day. But I do stop and take notice, and I try to face the fact that more than 4,000 US citizens have died in Iraq. We just reached 1,000 deaths in Afghanistan. That is more than the number of people who died on 9/11. It's more spread out. It's more distant, somehow, at least to those of us who don't know those people. But it's happening.
I think about my grandfather a lot on Memorial Day. He was a gunner on the USS Nicholas during WWII. I watch documentaries about World War II and see footage of battles in which we know my grandpa was involved. During my life, my grandpa was a kind of scary, bear-like man who sat in 1 of 2 chairs, seldom leaving his house. It's so hard for me to imagine him in the Pacific, shooting down planes, watching men on both sides die. I think I would probably just sit for awhile after going through something like that.
Here is Mark Twain's War Prayer. I think it speaks well to how I feel about war. How I feel on Memorial Day. I mark it. I am full of confusion and contradictions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75dEdZNCI4E