Memorial Day Musings

Today is the day that the United States honors our war dead. The first celebration memorializing US dead was in 1865. Black folks in Charleston, S.C. honored Union Soldiers who died in southern POW Camps by reburying them in celebration of their part in freeing the slaves. Later celebrations have honored all Americans killed in war. We say we honor them because they made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedom and way of life. Is that really true?


War is a pretty messy business I think. Recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan don't seem to have much to do with our freedom. For that matter, what has anything happening in the Middle East to do with the American way of life? Moreover, what does a "half off sale" at your local retailer have to do with memorializing dead soldiers? I ask these questions because we really need to start thinking critically about war and it's costs.

Current Defense Department Budgets run close to $700 Billion before we count the dead and maimed. That's more than half our federal budget spent on war. Seven hundred or more dollars for each human being on the planet spent on war. How many of us love war so much that we could afford $700 a year to keep it going?

The real waste in war is human. These little conflicts seem to just nibble at our younger citizens. It's easy to think of the few young dead as being incidental unless they are your or your neighbor's children. Well, I just added up the war dead for these small conflicts of the last sixty years and you wouldn't want the graveyard in your town. The approximate toll for these years is at least 16 Million dead. That's a lot of graves.

Do you want to save some of the next few million soldiers from becoming reasons for memorials? Perhaps you didn't realize that their lives are in our hands? That $700 Billion is, after all, spent by the people that you and I elect. Have we told them we want "NO MORE WAR" forever.