Remember A Day

Will the day ever come when we do not need to have a Memorial Day?

Bill Moyers Meditates On War

Here is Bill Moyers from the May 22, 2009 edition of Bill Moyers Journal:

…my friend Louis Bickford spends his days, and often his nights, on the healing and prevention of atrocities and crimes against humanity. Cruelty, horror, and misery are part of his portfolio at the International Center for Transitional Justice, along with the power of memory.

On The Huffington Post, Louis has an essay in which he says that Memorial Day is meant to remind us of the hardship of war. But he goes on to ask, "What does it mean to choose how to remember?" What does it say about us, for example, if "...we choose to remember the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, more in terms of heroism than error..." This, he reminds us, is the "...tendency of all nations."

Louis got me to thinking that when we meditate on war this weekend - our recent wars that is - will we overlook the suicides? Sweep under history's rug the recent murder in Iraq of five American soldiers by a comrade who may have been driven mad by the horrors around him? Will we forget the death from friendly fire of a Pat Tillman and the shameful cover-up by the brass, including the role of the very general who now heads our operations in Afghanistan?

What of all those villagers killed by drones remotely fired in our name? Why aren't they part of the narrative we tell ourselves about war? Louis Bickford wonders if we'll ever remember, "...that there was a place called Abu Ghraib on the dusty outskirts of Baghdad, and that torture took place there, for which we were responsible?" After all, he says, it was the complicity of Republicans, Democrats, journalists and lawyers - some of them scholars - that allowed us to ignore international and American law prohibiting torture.

Over some 40 years now it has seemed to me that as time goes by we tend to remember wars, and the suffering they bring, as if they were inevitable, natural acts of history, rather than politically inspired choices. But war, as was famously said, is politics by another means - the lethal legacy of failed leadership, enabled, even ennobled, by propaganda, the partisan opiate of politics. It is good to be reminded, as my friend Louis so eloquently reminds us, that war is too important to forget, and that's one reason to observe Memorial Day. There is another - to hold before our face a mirror, so that we might see the images of war reflected in our own eyes.

The Peace Contingent Belongs

From Memorial Day antiwar protests by Eric Ruder:

"What makes this Memorial Day different from the previous ones is that we finally have the official statistics showing that the number of suicides among veterans is astonishing--now at 1,000 attempts a month," said Ray in an interview.

"And the number of successful suicides among Iraq and Afghan veterans is equaling the number of deaths in combat. We are not talking about the elephant standing in the middle of the room. What we are dealing with is the feelings of a person after they've realized they've taken the life of another human being and they've lost the life of their best buddy in a war that never should have been fought."

In past years, support took the form of clapping and thumbs up, but this year there was chanting and joining the contingent. This has also established a precedent that the peace contingent belongs in the Memorial Day parade and that unbridled displays of militarism are not representative of how a majority of Americans feel about the war and supporting the troops.

Read the rest here.

The Memory Of The Dead

From Whom Will We Honor Memorial Day? by Howard Zinn:

Memorial Day will be celebrated ... by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments.

No politician who voted funds for war, no business contractor for the military, no general who ordered young men into battle, no FBI man who spied on anti-war activities, should be invited to public ceremonies on this sacred day. Let the dead of past wars he honored. Let those who live pledge themselves never to embark on mass slaughter again.

Read the rest here.

The Best Way To Honor Our Veterans

From Bill Moyers Journal:

Bush And The Bikers

From Motorcycle group presses Bush on veterans benefits by Christine Simmons:

Members of the Rolling Thunder motorcycling group roared into town for a White House visit Sunday, where they presented President Bush with his own cowhide vest jacket and pushed for increased veterans benefits.

"Mr. President, we'd like to make you an honorary member of Rolling Thunder," said Artie Muller, the group's executive director, to a delighted Bush, who shed his suit jacket to don the vest and pose for pictures.

"You've done a lot for the country, and the troops appreciate you, and the veterans appreciate you, and your president appreciates you," Bush told the group.

For 21 years now, Rolling Thunder has led a "Ride for Freedom" along the National Mall during Memorial Day weekend, a full-throttle demonstration in support of soldiers held captive or missing in action. On Sunday, riders began at the Pentagon, rode across the Memorial Bridge and gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Read the rest here.

You Can't March If You Are For Peace

From Vets for Peace Booted from National Memorial Day Parade:

There is one group of veterans that isn’t allowed to march in the national memorial parade in Washington on Monday.

That’s the Veterans for Peace, Delwin Anderson Memorial chapter, based in D.C. It’s named after a World War II vet who fought in Italy and then worked for the VA for many years designing programs for injured veterans.

The group had applied to join the National Memorial Day parade.

And initially, anyway, it was accepted.

But then, late last month, the group was told that it didn’t meet the criteria to participate.

The American Veterans Center, which runs the parade, told them “we cannot have elements in the parade that have any type of political message or wish to promote a point of view.”

Read the rest here.

Remember The Living With The New GI Bill of Rights

From Let us truly honor our fallen heroes this Memorial Day by Dorian De Wind:

As a Vietnam War era veteran, I received all my higher education, including a master’s degree, using the G.I. Bill and other military educational programs and assistance. I am thus very disappointed that the “support the troops” Bush administration, gung-ho Senator McCain, and the support Bush-McCain senator from Texas oppose a more robust version of a renewed G.I. Bill of Rights, ostensibly because it costs too much and for other nefarious reasons.

This is a bill that will give our Iraq and Afghanistan wars veterans–who have sacrificed so much more than I did–at least the same educational opportunities that were given my and past generations of veterans by a president who then truly supported the troops.

When President Bush, on Memorial Day, lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, I hope that he also remembers those who are still living, sweating, and dodging bullets, and sometimes being hit in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan.

I believe that we could offer no greater honor and respect to those who we are remembering this Memorial Day weekend than by promising to take better care of their brethren who are still living, and fighting.

Read more here.

How Low Can He Go?

From Hopefully He Barbecued, Too by Ezra Klein:

And what did the president do to mark Memorial Day weekend? Vetoed a 3.9% pay raise for the military!