Ash writes: "Who can tell of a good war, or anything good that has come from a war?"
Memorial Day is traditionally a day to remember fallen American soldiers. (photo: unknown)
You Say You Want a Memorial
26 May 13
ho memorializes carnage? Who stands witness to abject human suffering without cause or purpose? Who can tell of a good war, or anything good that has come from a war?
And what of those who serve? How shall we remember them? Should we send the next generation off with fanfare and obedience? Or should we ask the question we dare not ask: Why?
Who buried the dead at Antietam? Who believed what happened at Buchenwald could happen? Who has the courage to ask what happened at Fallujah? Who can rebuild Babylon? Who left Hue City alive? Was it really Custer's last stand? Who escaped Cambodia's Killing Fields? Can the soldiers at Verdun or the Somme come home now? When? Who remembers now?
The day of memorialization returns again to find us all the more bound by the past we refuse to learn from. 18 and dead and why, why?
Freedom? Freedom from what? How do we get free from the endless cycle of war?
There was a lesson at Normandy and Pittsburgh Landing and the A Shau Valley, but we missed it each time. Go home, stay there.
Dedicate this memorial day to those whose lives have not yet been destroyed in the name of those of those who gave everything.
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