Tag: Memorial Day

With Memorial Day right around the corner, check out this wonderfully moving article printed in USA TODAY entitled “More Than A Long Weekend” by Kathy Roth-Douquet, Blue Star Families’ Co-Founder and co-author with Frank Schaeffer “AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from Military Service — and How It Hurts Our Country”.

That’s the question asked by The Real News Network

Back on Thursday, May 15, 2008 I asked a question as well: PEACE Is A Political Statement?.

Here’s something you’ll never hear from any pundit, news reporter, or politician this Memorial Day: an apology.

To all the soldiers who have been maimed and killed in the wars of the Bush-Cheney regime:

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I didn’t do more to voice my opposition when it mattered.

I’m sorry I have kept paying for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan with my tax dollars, without doing more to ensure that you had all the equipment and training you needed to stay alive.  I’m sorry I didn’t do more to prevent all the money spent so far from being written in the form of blank checks to Halliburton and other war profiteers.

I’m sorry for all the pain, suffering, and death you’ve had to endure.

I’m sorry you were sent in without a clear mission, without an objective, and without constraints on your behavior so you could avoid being put in the position of committing war crimes on the orders of your inferiors in Washington.

I’m sorry some of you were allowed to be in the military, when your recruiters and training instructors knew you had little or no moral compass, when they knew you might gladly mistreat prisoners at places such as Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.  The actions carried out by these disgraces to their uniforms have tarnished the reputation of the military as a whole.

I’m sorry many of you who were maimed — mentally, physically, or both — were tricked out of your health care benefits by a Pentagon so greedy for money that it decided it could get away with fraudulently listing your conditions as pre-existing.

I’m sorry I didn’t make a bigger, louder, and more effective effort to call for the impeachment, prosecution, and conviction of those whose lies sent you into the hell of Iraq and Afghanistan with no way out.

To the families who have lost loved ones to these horrific wars and occupations:

I’m sorry your friends and relatives have suffered and died in vain.  I’m sorry their sacrifices have been swept under the rug, their true stories and their names and faces hidden away so that the public feels little connection to what’s being done in our name.  I’m sorry your loved ones have been turned into instruments of propaganda and political posturing.

To the people of Iraq:

I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to endure.

The picture below was taken in July of 1918 at Camp Dodge, on the north side of Des Moines, IA.  Approximately 18,000 men were assembled on the parade grounds to form a “living” Statue of Liberty.

According to a July 3, 1986, story in the Fort Dodge Messenger, many men fainted-they were dressed in woolen uniforms-as the temperature neared 105 degrees Farenheit. The photo, taken from the top of a specially constructed tower by a Chicago photography studio, Mole & Thomas, was intended to help promote the sale of war bonds but was never used.” (Grover 1987)

I’ve always had a hard time with this day.  I’ve always had a hard time with the military, understanding my own feelings about those who, with the power of government behind them, put guns in the hands of young men and women and teach them how to kill.

Here we are in the 21st Century, and we are still doing this, putting weapons in the hands of young men and women, sending them out to kill human beings.

We hear the usual sayings, “they chose to serve,” “to protect and defend,” “those who died are heros,” all those things.

I wonder what Americans really want when it comes to protecting and defending.

Memorial Day has become in our modern world a day to remember those who died for the sake of protecting and defending our country.

I see the names, I read the IGTNT diaries over at Daily Kos, showing the pictures of those killed in war, showing their families and friends, telling of their lives, their interests, dreams, ambitions.

Protect and defend.

They chose to serve.

Once again Veterans are living with the apathy of the country they served!

Remember Agent Orange or the many other ailments and Government using Military Personal to test the effects from Nuclear Explosions and Drugs, probably not!

Look them up, or search out the Vets, using this technology, who are still trying to Educate you too!

Remember the 1st Gulf War?

How about the Veterans from, with questions about, their rapidly deteriorating health after serving, many having died since, coming under the obscure name of ‘Gulf War Syndrom’, look that one up as well!

Teen PTSD researcher Ilana Rice

Why do I get the feeling you two are destined to meet? And by all means don’t change your first names!

We celebrate a Monday off of work towards the end of May, well those of us that don’t work in Retail, Food Services or various other industries that are open 366 days a year (at least THIS Leap Year) and the name given to this holiday is Memorial Day.

Many people see the Memorial Day three-day weekend as the true beginning of the Summer season, even though by the calendar, true summer, which is marked by the longest day of the year, is nearly one month away on June 20th.

But what is Memorial Day, and what caused there to be a reason FOR a Memorial Day?  What memorial?  Join me for the history of Memorial Day.

From Wikipedia:

Memorial Day is a United States Federal Holiday that is observed on the last Monday of May (observed in 2008 on May 26). It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in military service to their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include those who died in any war or military action.

As the United States prepares to remember its war dead on Memorial Day, some veterans who want to remember their fallen comrades with a wish for peace are being barred from participating in official events.  

Two chapters of Veterans for Peace, one in Washington state and one in Washingtgon, D.C., have been banned from parades.

In both cases,VFP was told it could not participate because the organization is “too political.”  That is the same reason that others have given for barring Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War from Veterans Day parades and activities.

What is particularly sad is that those who exclude them are often veterans themselves, with some misguided sense of patriotism.