Monday, May 28, 2007

It's Memorial Day

I remember when I liked this day...post WW II it was parades, friends, and playing....no school....and was always on May 30th - not the "last Monday in May." [ These 3 day weekends have turned all celebratory dates into BUY BUY BUY]

As a kid, we were told that WW II was the "last" war - that the world was made safe.....Guess I was a cynic early on because in a few years post WW II we were in Korea [not a war - just a police action]

During the Vietnam years, I began to hate war.....it made me cry to see, hear and read about the deaths of all the people subjected to the idiocy of war...I did not have a child back then but I cried for all those mothers who children died in Vietnam....

I still cry when I read of deaths in Iraq - but I now have a son and more fully understand the horror of potentially losing a child. Mine opted for the military for his own reasons, and he is now out and in college. And he hates king george even more having been in the military - because his friends who stayed in are dying or getting maimed.

My son was never really in harms way in all his 8 years of Army and National Guard - but I had a constant stomach ache worrying he could be sent....no parent anywhere on earth should have to live in that kind of fear...

So here I am today - reading about dead kids - Americans and Iraqis - and reading that the butcher of Washington went to Arlington Cemetery and said this:
The conflict will end some day "because all wars do," he said, adding, "Our duty is to ensure that its outcome justifies the sacrifices made by those who fought and died in it."
Said just like he has nothing to do with ending it....and the idea that more need to die to justify the one's already dead is a concept I could never grasp....This from a coward who never saw war, will not allow anyone to see or photograph the coffins arriving back in the USA and who never has attended a funeral of the ones he sent to die....

He should not be allowed to speak at any cemetery - especially not he one he goes to every Memorial Day - he disgraces the office of the president and disgusts me.

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