Memorial Day - flags, flowers, and patriotic rhetoric abounds and it seems that what gets left out is that the Fallen got into that position through decisions made by those with little or no 'skin' in the game. These people fell in battles of others' choosing, people whose motives may have had little to do with the patriotism of risking your life for your country's needs.
In that selfless risk of health and life there resides a terrible gamble, the proposition that the end is deserving of the sacrifice, not to the soldier who has no choice in the matter, but to the nation which asks it. Regardless of the actual need or stupidity of the decision to go war these men and women will go. It behooves this nation to consider what it asks in that regard.
I begin my analysis of any proposition to go to war from a pacifistic point of view, that warfare is a horrible cruel enterprise dedicated to breaking things and killing people. I need to be convinced that other options have been exhausted and that the issue merits death and destruction ... and that future analysis will not judge that a mistake.
The very best way of honoring the fallen is to ensure that their sacrifices will be judged as worthy of this nation. Never forget that what we honor is their selfless self-sacrifice for this nation and we need to deserve that sacrifice.
In that selfless risk of health and life there resides a terrible gamble, the proposition that the end is deserving of the sacrifice, not to the soldier who has no choice in the matter, but to the nation which asks it. Regardless of the actual need or stupidity of the decision to go war these men and women will go. It behooves this nation to consider what it asks in that regard.
I begin my analysis of any proposition to go to war from a pacifistic point of view, that warfare is a horrible cruel enterprise dedicated to breaking things and killing people. I need to be convinced that other options have been exhausted and that the issue merits death and destruction ... and that future analysis will not judge that a mistake.
The very best way of honoring the fallen is to ensure that their sacrifices will be judged as worthy of this nation. Never forget that what we honor is their selfless self-sacrifice for this nation and we need to deserve that sacrifice.
4 comments:
Amen to that!
Well said....
The ability of elected officials to insulate themselves and their families from the consequences of their 'decision-making' is the exact point at which we have lost our moral compass. I have long felt death notices shouldn't be delivered by the military but by an elected official, someone who played a role in putting that particular life at risk.
MR,
It is also a consequence of a "volunteer" military which insulates the general public from the personal consequences of military action. I never opposed the draft as a fairly and evenly applied system - I did accept the legal consequences of saying "no" to such a system, ie going to fed pen for it.
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