On this day we pause to remember all of those who have given their lives for freedom. From Whitley: “Every year, I take time to walk in a military graveyard, past all those stones, reflecting that each one of them represents a life just like mine, just as treasured by somebody who sacrificed it for my freedom. I recall the words of my wife Anne: “Each of us is all we have.”
They gave that for each of us and all of us, that we could speak our minds and vote our beliefs without fear. They gave it for freedom here and the idea of freedom everywhere. We remember them with gratitude beyond expression.
Photo © Yakov Stavchansky
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“AMEN.”
Peace.
Every Memorial Day over the last 20 years or so I consider the destruction and death visited on the world by the world’s largest and most expensive military establishment. I think of the multi-billions that could have been applied to constructive life giving benefit at home and abroad that will never be. I watched Memorial Day celebrations in Washington broadcast by PBS and was saddened though not surprised that no words of condolence were offered to all the innocents killed by our brave men and women who also suffered death and disfigurement while executing orders to expand and maintain the Great American Empire. Individually they gave their all for their brothers and sisters-in-arms and have to some greater or lesser degree have not been cared for properly despite billions spent by the VA, a whole other issue.
I’m clearly not patriotic but in my misspent youth I did serve in the Imperial Forces as a maintenance tech on a nuclear armed cruise missile system mounted on the B-52. Protected by my status as part of the Strategic Air Command I never came any closer to combat than the average car mechanic.
When I meet someone who has been in combat or served particularly a younger person I thank them because what they did was hard and dangerous.
“They gave that for each of us and all of us, that we could speak our minds and vote our beliefs without fear. They gave it for freedom here and the idea of freedom everywhere. We remember them with gratitude beyond expression.”
Final comment because I see this repeated often in one form or other. I’ve always wanted to ask how is it that in many, by no means all, countries citizens can speak their minds and vote without fear all without constantly fighting wars. No other country has such a large military or uses it more frequently. Pax Americana fails, for me, as an explanation.
What would this world be like without their sacrifice I wonder? Some of us are so busy hating even ourselves that we cannot see.
So many young deaths who bought into the Call up to support the Military Industrial Complex that General Eisenhower warned us about.
I have men from my ancestry line: Revolutionary war ,1812, Confederate Army, WW2 & Vietnam war…who all fought ,some maimed.
and it pains me when I see the USA trading with these former enemies and to think that our massive Military budget could solve many of our nations woes…..what a waste this endless war model is…