Memorial Day is observed in remembrance of the Americans who have died fighting for their country. Serving in the armed forces is not an easy task even when the nation is at peace, and in wartime, an incredibly tough burden is placed on the backs of our young men and women. Many are injured. Some die. All deserve our thanks for doing what their nation asked of them, whether or not we agree that what they were asked to do was the right thing.
Follow me over the orange battle cry for more.
That's me in the photo at the right. Specialist 4th Class EdG, United States Army. The photo was taken in 1975. I was 19 years old, 6' 5" tall and 225 Army Strong
TM pounds. Through timing and circumstances, though, I never served overseas, much less in a war zone.
But I was ready to fight if called upon to do so. That's what you agree to do when you sign up.
My first name is Edward. I was named after my dad's cousin Edward, who was killed in the Korean War. Unfortunately, I don't know much about him. In the G family, we don't talk much about life and death. I know my dad served in World War 2 and somehow ended up with a fractured arm that pained him for the rest of his life, but he wouldn't talk about the details. My uncle joined right after Pearl Harbor and fought through the entirety of the war. He didn't talk about it, either.
I do know that my grandfather was spirited away from Poland to America when he was 17 so that he wouldn't be drafted into the Tsar's army, the White Russian Army. Yet the first thing he did upon arriving in the United States was voluntarily register for Selective Service in case his adopted homeland needed his service.
I guess that's what freedom is all about: Choosing who you're willing to fight and die for.
The closest I came to war was being loaded onto a military transport plane in 1973 in case the United States had to go rescue Israel in one of its many wars with Arabs. My unit provided telecommunications services, and I repaired teletypes (pictured at right). If you're not familiar with teletypes, just think of them as an early version of the iPhone. They sent dispatches (an early form of Tweets) back and forth between field units and headquarters.
As we enjoy our barbeques and beer and baseball games on this Memorial Day, I have a wish that may never be fulfilled. It's not that it can't be fulfilled. It's just that so many people have vested interests in the opposite wish that mine likely never will be fulfilled.
Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, many people prayed for an end to war and the suffering it caused. Surely by the 21st century, they thought, war will be obsolete. As Edna Krabappel would say, "Ha!"
Even, or especially, those who had seen war longed for an end to war, as these quotes from famous military men show:
What a cruel thing war is... to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors. -- Robert E. Lee
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. -- William Tecumseh Sherman
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Alas, dreams of peace have been repeatedly dashed upon the shores of political glory and expediency. The paganistic cries of "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" by war hero Senator John McCain and the nonsensical statement by Senator Lindsey Graham that the US occupation of Iraq provides “an opportunity to demonstrate to the Arab world and others that the rule of law matters” have defined us as our nation lurches from one call to arms to another: Crimea! Islamic State! Syria! Iran!
Apparently, there is no situation under the sun that a liberal application of explosives can't resolve.
Of course, the victims of man's inhumanity to man might disagree. The Yazidi pictured at right temporarily benefitted from US bombs. But the wheels of war keep rolling, and Islamic State
exacted their 'revenge' by killing hundreds more Yazidi this very month. Violence begets violence one could say.
On to the next war!
Or not. Because that is my Memorial Day wish. I wish that the carefree little girl running through the field of flags in the opening photo will never need to run for her life from enemy fire on a foreign battlefield. That she and all little girls and boys will grow up in an enlightened world, one where the warmongers have been defeated once and for all.
As Republican President Eisenhower once said, back when it was possible for a Republican to voice such heresy, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Today, let's honor those who laid down their lives for our country. They deserve it. But please join with me in wishing that one day, no more will need to do so.
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
John Lennon - Imagine