Honor the Veterans

 

Last week we celebrated Veterans Day on November 11^th which was curious because it was a Thursday and usually we like to move those observations to a Monday so that the holiday-conscious public can enjoy a three-day weekend and a Monday mattress sale.

It used to be called Armistice Day. An end to the slaughter that was World War One was declared at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was the war to end all wars, though of course not for long.

At risk of upsetting most of the people who actually acknowledge Veterans’ Day, Memorial Day and other holidays that recognize the supreme sacrifice of soldiers in war, I have to say that part of my reaction is biting my tongue. I weep for those who gave their "last full measure of devotion" as Lincoln described it at Gettysburg.

My dissent comes first from the fact that war is insane in almost every case because it is the obscenity of strangers killing strangers, trying to create unbearable horror so that the other side quits first. Second, there is actually very little heroism in war; it’s mostly just suffering, even for those who come back alive, without serious wounds. Third, by celebrating instead of deploring war, we countenance its continuance and surely in any moral society there is no greater sin than to condemn our children to the possibility that they will be cannon fodder for the corrupt egomaniacs we seem to have a penchant for choosing to lead us.

We shouldn’t have wars, we should prevent them. Instead we promote them. We let Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini rise slowly and deliberately to power. We made Saddam, PolPot, Sukarno, Rios-Montt and myriad other murderous despots. We sell half the world’s munitions. Now, twelve hundred Americans and 100,000 civilians are dead in Iraq. It has to stop.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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