Memorial Day 2017

Today, May 29 is the designated Memorial Day. This is because of the “Uniform Monday Holiday Act” established on June 28, 1968. The real Memorial day is May 30, established in 1868 to honor those lost in the civil war, there’s an oxymoron, a civil war. Wars are not civil; they are brutal and bloody. Wars are things old men (the world collectively) send our young poor people to die in. Poor people die in wars while rich businessmen become richer still.

We Americans have had our share of wars and some extra to be sure. I was thinking of World War Two yesterday. My father, my uncle Kenny, Joyce’s father, her uncle William all served in combat. My father was in Patton’s 3rd army in Germany. My uncle was in Carlson’s marine raider battalion. Joyce’s father’s ship the USS Brownson DD-518 was sunk off New Britain in the south Pacific. Her uncle William, a gunner on a Mitchell bomber, was shot down over Germany and spent a year in a POW camp. I feel we were very lucky that none of them were killed. They were all changed by the war. Our nephew Patrick (23 years army) has been in combat in Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan and he has changed. Me, in the navy before Vietnam, during and after Vietnam, may have changed but not as much as the boys in the jungles of Vietnam. Writing this today you can see I have a totally different perspective with the wisdom of age. I am not really a wise old man; it’s just a historical perspective.

The Berlin airlift began in 1948, starting the cold war that went on until 1991. The US still has 38,500 troops in Germany, down from 300,000 after the war, but they/we are still there.

Korea flared up just 5 years later. Those soldiers and sailors that were lured into staying on in the army or navy reserve after the world war, were right back in combat. Some soldiers were still part of the occupying force in Japan and went right into Korea. That war ended in time, 1950-1953 (although we still have 38,000 troops there) for a brief rest until...wait for it...

Vietnam started slowly, 1959 and just 700 US advisors in country. In 1963 that number was 15,000. In 1964 the Tonkin Gulf incident gave Johnson the fever and another 185,000 troops jumped into the fray. That ramped up to 540,000 by the Tet offensive in 1968. War continued until 1973 when the first troop withdrawal began and finally ended in 1975.

The Beirut bombing in 1983 killed 243 US marines there on a peacekeeping mission. Now there is another oxymoron, peacekeeping that cost 243 young men’s lives.

The first gulf war began in 1991 and ended in 91.

The war on terror began in 2001 in Afghanistan, still fighting there in 2017. The Iraq war started in 2003, still fighting there.

I have skipped over several more incidents, that have happened with the loss of American soldier’s lives. It’s beginning to look like wars will never end for the US military forces. Geopolitics is the often-used reason for all of this. Perhaps that is the truth, but I offer another thought. Here on the ground, the fat-cat businessmen keep getting fatter and the poor young men keep dying. This needs to stop. Perhaps if the rich and powerful had to defend our country on the front lines, it would stop.

Meanwhile, today we celebrate Memorial Day, commemorating those soldiers and sailors lost in the last 156 years of never-ending conflicts. The young men dying today and every day since the Civil war are just as brave as those 156 years ago and just as dead. Let’s honor those still in service around the world. If I sound bitter and angry over all of this, it’s only because I am bitter and angry that this goes on and on. You may have read in history class about the 100-year war that lasted 116 years between England and France over the wealth and power of the throne. I think we have been in a 156-year war and I am tired of it.

One last thought, something from the Vietnam era, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?”