Overcast and dark with what sounded like sprinkles pattering on the back patio this early Monday on California’s north coast — supposedly just another daily segment in a mundane weather-routine this week, even for Memorial Day.
Nowadays in the age of perpetual war, memories continue. Last week from Pew Research:
The day will be an intensely personal experience for many veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts — about half (47 percent) said that they served with a comrade that had been killed, according to a Pew Research Center survey of veterans conducted in 2011.
That number rises to 62 percent among soldiers who were in combat.
(Illustration found here).
War-waging as propagated by recent history shines of a fairy-tale ever-after-glow — George W blubbered-out the phrase, ‘War on Terror,’ the first time Sept. 20, 2001, and from that pie-hole spring all kinds of war-faring monikers, most with the word ‘terror‘ somewhere prominent, especially ‘The Global War on Terror,’ and the soulful, lonely, ‘The Long War,’ appeared in the public consciousness, part of the ‘new normal‘ landscape of constant war.
Two years ago, President Obama attempted to break this mindless, dumb-ass cycle, but really couldn’t figure a real practical approach to what the White House called an “amorphous thing,” such as the modern terror war. Obama claimed during a speech at the National Defense University war should be waged against ‘specific networks of violent extremists,’ and not everybody — Duh!
Also in the speech, Obama said : “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end.”
Yeah, right — and of course, that was before ISIS got way-savagely on a roll.
Children born in the US after September 2001 — about 56 million of them now — have known nothing but war, and the military, and funerals. Reportedly, in days past, wars ended and the troops came home.
No so seemingly ever more.
In remembrance of those who’ve died in uniform, doing what they were supposed to do, a memorial to the real Memorial Day from US Marine veteran Jennie Haskamp via the Chicago Tribune and from a war-weary life the last 14 years.
Read the whole piece, a potent look at the ‘unofficial’ start to summer.
Noteworthy:
I spent my formative years in combat boots and all of my friends are in the military, were in the military, or married into the military.
I have several friends buried at Arlington, and know of dozens more men and women interred in that hallowed ground.
…
I’m frustrated by people all over the country who view the day as anything but a day to remember our WAR DEAD.
I hate hearing “Happy Memorial Day.”
It’s not Veteran’s Day.
It’s not military appreciation day.
Don’t thank me for my service.
Please don’t thank me for my service.
It’s take the time to pay homage to the men and women who died while wearing the cloth of this nation you’re so freely enjoying today, day.
I’ve attended more than 75 funerals and memorial services since September 11, 2001.
Services for men and women I knew personally, or knew of before they died.
Men and women who were friends of my friends.
People who’d eaten dinner at my house.
Husbands of my friends.
Sons of my friends.
Brothers of my friends.
Sisters of my friends.
Men who served with my friends.
Men who died with my friends.
Men who were my friends.
…
I hope you enjoy your weekend — but I hope you pause to remember, too.
True sentiments, especially living in the wake of war waged by George W.