Best wishes to all on this Memorial Day. It is a sobering holiday on the heels of our passing the 3000 death in Afghanistan alone. This week we also learned that half of our returning veterans are filing for disability. While some of us opposed these wars, we still are united as a country in our gratitude and respect for the men and women who have put themselves in harm’s way in foreign lands. The cost to these heroes and their families is a debt that we can never fully repay.
The last identified loss is Royal Welsh officer Capt Stephen Healey, 29, who was killed in Afghanistan. Captain Healey was a former Swansea City soccer player who once raised money for blind veterans by walking blindfolded from Chester to Llandudno. He sounds like a wonderful person and a natural leader. He was blown up by a bomb in Afghanistan after previously surviving an IED attack. After his soccer career, he joined the 1st Battalion, The Royal Welsh (The Royal Welch Fusiliers). He died leading a platoon on the tour in Helmand province. He leaves behind his father John, mother Kerry, brother Simon and girlfriend Thea. He is a credit to his country and his family.
For most of us, today is a time for family and friends. Unfortunately, our own plans for the holiday had to be set aside so that I could finish the briefs in the Sister Wives case — summary judgment motions are due on May 31st. However, we will be having a cook out in the backyard. To everyone on the blog, have a fun and safe holiday.
bettykath, could not agree more. it is one of the great shames of America and the American* people that from Valley Forge to the present we have turned out back on our Soldiers after every war.
Kipling said it best:
“Its Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy ‘owes your soul, but its a thin red line of ‘eroes when the drums begin to roll.”
*its a long list beginning with slavery, genocide against native Americans, oppression of woman, bigotry against gays, religious persecution, and countless broken promises to our soldiers. I can forgive the past but I can not forgive still doing it now and in the future.
There is not much more to add with all of the fine, heartfelt comments to Prof. Turley’s wonderful Memorial Day posting. We can honor those that sacrificed their time, their efforts and in too many cases, their lives to the protection of our country. No matter how misused you think the military personnel has been, they are all heroes to me. Save your disdain for the politicians who love to send men and women to their ultimate sacrifice.
Iz1b: My former husband had several brothers who served during WWII. One was at Normandy on D-Day. He would confirm that he was there. None of them would talk of their experiences.
I know a few who served in Viet Nam. They confirm they were there but they won’t talk about it. One exception: a helicopter pilot who carried out the wounded will admit that his chopper took fire and he got shrapnel through his seat. End of discussion.
I hope they are able to talk to each other. It’s a huge burden to carry alone. As a society we should be doing more to restore those who have been wounded mentally and physically. Instead we create more wounded and dead.
What Mike S. and the article linked by 1zb1 said.
War is something you know nothing about if you haven’t been there and something you want to forget if you have.
Support our troops – bring ’em home. above link is Pete Seeger
“The cost to these heroes and their families is a debt that we can never fully repay.” (remove the word “fully”)
From the article posted by 1zb1 — the following bears repeating:
“Where is the outrage by the American People?”
“The myth of America as the home of the free and brave rightly belongs to only the very few who have served but surely not to the many. Today our treatment of veterans is another reminder the reality of America as the home of the greedy and bigoted continues to shine through.”
@1zb1, Mike Spindell: Hear hear. It is very easy to shed a tear and “remember” the fallen, those well intentioned emotions are thin gruel for the families that suffer without the lifetime of income, companionship, care and burden sharing of their father, brother, son, mother, sister or daughter.
When it comes down to sharing that burden with them, the American people put on the green eyeshade and become quite calculating and “conservative” over the magnitude of that loss.
“Let us celebrate their heroism, yet deplore those using it so cavalierly.”
Hear, hear, Mike S.
Too many good lives lost. Too many wounded and suffering soldiers who live on, many without the help that they require.
Memorial Day makes me angry and has since I realized the futility and stupidity of Viet Nam. We buy the myth of supporting the troops, but in fact we just send them off to die and give little comfort to those who survive the ravages of war. While some solemn ceremonies take place honoring military service, in the main it is a day of barbeques, beer and sales. When I think of the sacrices made by young men propagandized to believe they are giving service to their nation, I feel sadness that their dedication to the U.S. has been so ill-used. Let us celebrate their heroism, yet deplore those using it so cavalierly.
Thanks OS.
Phil Ochs, in the ’60’s had his say about war.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE
I remain strongly unsatisfied with the ‘honor the soldier but not the policy’, since it is the very ambiguity of ‘honor’ that, it seems to me, is used in a manipulative way to justify the ease with which we seem to enter more conflicts; especially these days of volunteer military and remote killing.
Needless to say, I am equally dissatisfied with the Orwellian notions of defensive, offensive, pre-emptive, preventive wars which, again, seem merely manipulative ways to leverage an equally unsatisfactory notion of ‘patriotism’.
We need more politicians and public figures in general to break the taboo on exposing this manipulation and the similarly dismissive and shallow way that the notion of working for peace has become a throwaway line.
Our ‘enemies’ will always be considered evil. Our own willingness to never question our own motives and behavior carries with it an evil of it’s own.
Eric Bogle wrote The Band Played Waltzing Matilda in 1971 in honor of the ANZACS. For those who see Memorial Day or Remembrance Day (UK equivalent) as some kind of happy holiday should listen carefully to the lyrics all the way to the end. Eric speaks the unspeakable truth.
A recent opinion in the NYTimes struck at the essence of the problem,
“…while everyone is ready to “thank them,” few are ready to join them. It’s hard to fight for your country year after year (or watch your child do so) then recover from physical and psychological wounds when, let’s be frank — our nation doesn’t share the sacrifice. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/05/24/how-should-the-us-support-returning-veterans/more-americans-should-enlist
The remarks underscore a far deeper problem facing our nation: the profound disconnect between our myth and our reality.
In the aftermath of 911, President Bush used the ashes of the World Trade Center to send the best of our young men and woman off to war while telling everyone else to go out and shop and giving tax cuts to all, especially the very wealthy. Essentially, we were told to use more oil from the very places that were the cradle for the attack and buy more goods from China, not exactly our best friend.
And so as our men and woman went in harms way America itself was told to give aid an comfort to our enemies, all in the name of defending our way of life. Americans happily obliged to shop till we dropped, which, of course we eventually did in 2008.
I try to imagine after the attack on Pearl Harbor FDR giving a tax cut to the wealthy, or telling everyone to go out and shop especially from our enemies Japan and Germany. The very suggestion of such action would likely result in FDR being hung for treason and rightly so.
Yet with all that we know today we hear even louder drumbeats of war and tax cuts for the wealthy from Mitt Romney and the Republicans. Many of them such as Bush, Romney and the rest of the “chickenhawsk” did their best to avoid service.
Where is the outrage by the American People?
The myth of America as the home of the free and brave rightly belongs to only the very few who have served but surely not to the many. Today our treatment of veterans is another reminder the reality of America as the home of the greedy and bigoted continues to shine through.
“It is a sobering holiday on the heels of our passing the 3000 death in Afghanistan alone.”
Even more sobering is the number of Afghan civilian deaths (never mind injured). It makes the number of allied force deaths almost trivial. e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29
The numbers for Iraq ……. are even more sobering again.
Then there’s drones killing civilians in Pakistan (where there isn’t a war).
168 children killed in seven years.
But it’s not too bad really, as 69 of those were killed in a single strike – so the numbers are skewed.
There isn’t a war in Yemen either, but CIA Drone Airways say “Thank you for dying with us.”
I think Frankly has a great idea above.
I propose that the new corporate overlords foot the bill for every civilian and veteran wounded in the post 9/11 wars. For obvious reasons.
Memorial Day: Honor their deaths by questioning anyone calling for more of them.
Every day is Memorial Day at our house. Every day. There are two tri-folded flags in the living room resting in their cherrywood cases. One on the mantel over the fireplace and one of a bookcase. At our house we do not forget. We cannot forget. We will not forget.
Bring them home. It is time. It is past time.
Flowers of the Forest was written by a member of our family five hundred years ago after the bloody battle at Flodden Field in 1513. A fragment of the original manuscript still exists. Lyrics were added much later.
I think one of the best ways to honor the fallen, particularly those of the misbegotten misadventures of the last 60 years, would be to do better at creating fewer of them in the future.