It’s now a few days after the fifth Memorial Day that the Iraq War has been waged by American troops. Five years and we have only a situation that becomes worse each day.
The American people are said to have sent a mandate to Congress in the 2006 elections but that mandate has been ignored by politicians more intent on pleasing corporate masters than carrying out the will of the people.
The truth is the American people have little stake in the deaths of American men and women of an all “volunteer” military. Far too often the troops are pawns in the nastiness of public debate.
Republicans, Democrats, progressives, conservatives, liberals, evangelicals and every other group with any political intent claim to support the troops better than anyone else. The ugly little truth is most often the safety and security of the troops becomes mere lip service. Really, only family members seem above hidden agendas in support of the troops.
Bush and Cheney claim a new reason every other week for keeping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The mythical and nebulous “war on terror” always comes up in conjunction with September 11, 2001 as the final resort of a reason when all others are refuted and shown to be lies.
Democrats and Republicans claim to have differing strategies but both have some form of maintaining American presence. The reason for keeping American troops in Iraq to maintain stability in the country is about as valid as trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
Americans claimed to support the troops as they went out in public wearing American flag shirts, eating off American flag paper plates and using American flag napkins.
They’ll further desecrate the flag by putting small American flags on their SUV’s to shred in the wind within a months’ time.
These are usually the same people who support a Constitutional amendment making it a crime to burn the American flag(see flag etiquette). One person’s patriotism is another person’s desecration.
If Americans really wanted to commemorate Memorial Day they’d start by demanding a stop to the endless warfare that continues to kill American men and women.
They need to demand an end of killing over 650,000 Iraqis with the true WMD’s; American bombs and armament.
If Americans want to commemorate Memorial Day in a proper way, let us remember the Constitution and Bill of Rights that continues to be eroded by the current administration. Torture and imprisonment without trial is not something troops lying in Arlington and other national cemeteries intended to give their lives for.
Instead the American people let a small percentage of the population bear the violent burden of war while the rest of the population either cheer the violence without direct involvement or decry it from air conditioned homes with SUV’s in the garage. Or they look upon the troops as villains who commit genocidal acts without conscience.
The young ages of the troops, the economics and education seldom come up in these discussions. If no one’s right and everybody’s wrong how can we decide?
I detest Memorial Day as a day that insults the dead and the living veterans of war. But then I am one of the living dead of war. If you ask most of the dead and those of us who are still alive with horrific memories of war, Memorial Day has become a dishonorable day of excess and disconnect from those who have been at war.
If there is to be honor for the dead from the many wars there must be a true desire for peace. The death dealing military industrial complex blocks any such desire on the part of the government. The masters of war continue to collect profits on the corpses of our sons and daughters.
The American public has become serfs of these evil interests. They allow their children to fight World War I and WWII, Korea, Vietnam and any other war on video games. They tolerate the sanitized commercials of the Marines or the Army during every break of action in NBA and NHL playoff games.
The ads show “the few, the proud, the Marines” who are called “Devil Dogs” or “Leathernecks” wearing spotless uniforms or in film or video footage totally devoid of missing limbs, dead bodies or dead civilians that are the true reality of war.
If the American public cared enough about peace and the children they allow to fight wars, they should want the recruitment ads saturating the airways to be truthful.
They should want the ads to show the traumatic amputations, the battered skulls and the dead babies their sons and daughters will encounter if they enlist.
They certainly can’t complain the ads would be too violent since there is an endless supply of movies that depict extreme gore and violence their children are allowed to watch. So why not show the reality of being a Devil Dog and Leatherneck?
Allowing our children to witness thousands upon thousands of “entertainment” deaths each year through video games, movies and television shows creates the perfect storm for recruiters to sign them up for the “real thing”.
I also wonder if war is so damn honorable for so many Americans why every family doesn’t have a son or daughter at risk of being deployed. Instead they allow the troops to come from small towns and inner cities offering limited opportunity. Americans have finally found the perfect military force; an all volunteer force they don’t have to pay attention to or worry about late at night as parents.
I recently read about an Iraq veteran who has started a group called Modern Military Veterans. His premise is the modern military is so much more intense and hectic than any previous armed force this nation has ever had. It seems “his war” is just so much tougher than “our wars”.
I think the men who landed on the beaches of Normandy might argue the Iraq war veteran hasn’t a clue what heavy combat is truly about. I think Vietnam veterans might say there has yet to be an equivalent of the 1968 Tet Offensive in the Iraq War.
I think most of the combat veterans I know would tell this foolish man no war is worse or better than another. War is a universal act of insanity. The question shouldn’t be which war is worse. The question should be why we can’t accomplish a lasting peace.
Memorial Day should be a day of reflection about our inability to bring peace to the world. We should look at those gravestones of all the war dead and vow to end the insanity that led to the deaths of so many young men and women.
Memorial Day should be a day of recognition. We should recognize the dead are not only American troops. The dead include infants hit by shrapnel of a bomb. The dead are a mother and father who fail to stop at a checkpoint out of fear or confusion. Their children witness their deaths and are splattered by their blood. The dead are a young woman’s family following her rape and killing by American troops. The dead are a surgeon, a teacher, a pharmacist and students.
We can allow ourselves to vilify people as sub-humans because they practice a different religion. We can overlook dead bodies being eaten by dogs in Fallujah. We can accept torture by water board or worse. We can deny all of it but it remains a fact that it happens in the name of freedom and democracy.
I have friends who are veterans and friends with family who live in Iraq and are in harm’s way every day.
I have friends who are parents of troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are sleep deprived and constantly on edge from their fears. They fear the harm to their family members just as my other friend fears harm to the family in Iraq.
I went to church this past Sunday morning and kept wondering where the moral leadership of the Church was in opposing these wars. It was Pentecost. There wasn’t a mention of peace in the prayers but there was a prayer for the men and women “protecting” us in service to their country.
I just have a difficult time thinking Jesus would endorse such service as loving our brothers and sisters as we would love ourselves.
I have more difficulty accepting anything the Church says as a moral guideline when it fails so miserably to take a stance on an illegal and immoral war.
I have to challenge the leadership of all religions to act as God would want them to in bringing peace to this world. I don’t hold out much faith for this to happen, however.
Many years ago Mark Twain wrote “The War Prayer”. His words are as true now as they were when he wrote them:
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said
Mark Twain
Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Combat veteran
Posts
