Why I hate Memorial Day

Memorial Day honors the tragedy of those who died for their country. All over the nation, ceremonies take place at cemeteries of the fallen. Volunteers place flags on graves; taps is played; flags are furled; and stern-faced members of veterans' organizations attend in solemn rows in their caps and insignia.

It's not a time for cynicism. And yet, that's just what I feel. As a nation, our feelings are manipulated on what should be a day of sorrow and regret.

Let me be clear--we should justly honor the sacrifice of those who died in war. But the way we do it glorifies war to yet another generation. It deludes our youth into believing it's their duty to enlist in the next crusade to benefit politicians and the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. The martial music and stirring speeches perpetuate the lie that the fallen "died for our freedom." They did not.

Did our soldiers die heroically? Often they did. But for the most part, they died uselessly.

War is a failure of diplomacy. Instead of flags and martial music, we should offer apologies to the dead for yet again failing to avert the catastrophe of war. Our vow to the dead should be to redouble our efforts to find peaceful ways of settling disputes. On this day we should mourn not just those who perished in war, but our repeated failure to move beyond the barbaric practice of officially killing strangers just because someone in power who stands to gain from war convinced us that it's in our best interest to do so.

The message of Memorial Day should be "Never again! We will not send yet another generation of youth to the killing fields."

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Eisenhower on war:

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war." (Press conference: 1953)

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity. War settles nothing." (Speech: Ottawa, Canada, January 10, 1946)

Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th President of the United States
(1953-1961)

(Courtesy of West Point Graduates Against the War)

The daily gripe

We hear it every day. We read it in the letters to the editors. If it weren't for the soldiers who defended our country (and by extension, they imply, our right of free speech) we wouldn't be able to criticize the war. So we should just shut up.

I beg to differ. No soldier has defended our country since World War II.

Was there ever a chance that tiny Korea would launch a successful attack on the U.S.? How was our country threatened by the little third-world nation of Vietnam? Was Panama a threat? How about Grenada? I don't think the folks in Kosovo were coming to get us. Afghanistan? Laughable, though there were some people IN Afghanistan who were a threat to us. Too bad we didn't go after THEM.

Even I knew that there were no nukes in Iraq. But suppose there were? What would Saddam gain by attacking us with those nukes, even if he had missiles capable of reaching us?

Iran? The people who rule Iran want to keep on ruling Iran, not be obliterated by the certain response from the U.S. and Israel if they dared to unleash their hypothetical nukes on anyone.

While there are plenty of individuals who might give their lives to destroy the U.S., no sovereign nation on earth is anywhere near that foolish.

Meanwhile, most nations have learned from our adventures that we only attack countries that don't have nukes. (Yes, Virginia, our government knew there were no nukes in Iraq.) So the choice for them is to either pretend they have nukes when they don't (Saddam, even though he couldn't disguise his lack of nukes from the IAEA), or do their best to get the nukes before we attack them (Iran and North Korea). Can you blame them? After all, this is what the U.S. Soviet arms race was about--deterrence, not a desire to out-bomb the other country.

Does this mean I hate soldiers or think they're not honorable people? Not at all. Soldiers sign up for the military for the most honorable of reasons: they want to protect our country.

But they are lied to from day one. Their honor is betrayed by the governments who send them to battle on the false pretext that they are "defending our freedoms." The soldiers are not there to protect our rights or sovereignty or democracy or freedom or apple pie.

We have seen that all wars of the last 60 years have been about nothing more than stuffing the pockets of war profiteers.

Our young people are our national treasure. Imagine their bitterness when they finally realize they've been duped. Aside from the terrible mental damage war inflicts on them, they will have to live with this betrayal all their lives. When will we stop throwing their future away so heartlessly?