Mikey on Memorial Day in the context of the War On Iraq:
We got memorial day. A day where we could look at our fighting men through the misty lens of history and honor their sacrifice, all the while understanding their secret complicity. But maybe, just maybe, on balance, there was enough good to offset the brutality and domination.
Now we got Iraq. Coming, as it does, on the generational heels of vietnam. How are we to approach this thing? What honor have we earned? How can we thump our chests and weep for our fallen, when they died for a meaningless crime, when the wounded and the damaged and the broken still walk our streets, still struggle in our communities without support, when the families are shattered and broken?
Somebody needs to tell me how to do this Memorial day. I don’t think LOLVets works. Frankly, it pisses me off. But I’m just me. But I don’t want to worship our “heroes” either.
Sure. They did the best they could. This criminal idiocy wasn’t their idea, and it was set on their shoulders to accomplish an unspecified goal in an unspecified amount of time for an unspecified reason. They fought for their honor, they fought for their colleagues, they fought ’cause it was their job.
And now they have to come home, with the memories of the dead civilians, the ruined country, the crimes and the pointlessness in their heads. And home is a place where people lament the cost of filling the SUV, of taking that Disneyland vacation, of trying to get that promotion at the bank.