Memorial Day 2006

By A. Prieto
I was watching a slew of Memorial Day related films, TV. shows and news this week. All in preparation for the Memorial Day holiday this weekend, you know the one where people ranging in age from 18-50 get completely trashed and crash their boats unto unsuspecting jet skiers. I won’t be stupid to assume that no one knows what Memorial Day is all about, I’m sure most people do, and the Veterans know for sure.
America has tried to stand for liberty and justice for all, this is our motto our creed. Our Constitution guarantees this for all Americans even though the founding fathers were painfully aware of the hypocrisy of the document (when first ratified nearly 217 years ago) in relation to slavery. However they knew that compromises had to be made in order for this document to become law. John Adams himself felt that the battle for slavery would be fought not by his generation but by future generations. The point is that America has always been making mistakes both on the domestic and most importantly the foreign stage. We can trace our ill advised, ill executed military adventures from President Bush’s Iraq to Jefferson’s hunt for the Barbary Pirates. The ones who were sent to execute these missions were our men and women in uniform. These were the future generations that eventually fought the war of slavery under Lincoln.
The American soldier (men and women) have for 2 centuries fought to protect our freedoms. I know that in the last 40 years our freedoms haven’t been threatened as much as the military industrial complex bottom line. But with the exception of 9/11 and World War 2 our military has taken the brunt of our governments careless imperialist goals. The government runs hand in hand with corporate monsters like Dow Chemicals, Colt and recently big oil to unreasonably threaten and eventually invade countries with little or no proof. The banner that flies over these decimated countries is not the Stars and Stripes but McDonalds golden arches or Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders. Who coincidently looks like a southern plantation owner circa 1852.We all know this we have the lessons of the Korean conflict, Vietnam and now Iraq.
We can protest these events and we have en force, however the lesson I believe is: don’t blame the soldier sent thousands of miles away to enact an often laughable foreign policy, but blame the law makers. These men and women in uniform suffer on the front lines usually without direct communication with family, friends and lovers. During the Vietnam conflict soldiers coming home were subjected to name calling, public humiliations and eventually forgotten by both the population and the U.S. government. Both entites wanted to forget the whole mess. This is one of many of the tragedies to come from Vietnam. A shameful disrespect that still haunts us today.
The point to all of this is this: We may not support our government’s lies and warmongering, but we must support our troops that are fighting a world away, under harsh conditions and limited understanding of the indigenous population. These men and women may or may not believe in the root cause of their deployment but they do believe in each other. They believe in the brotherhood of their experience together. Experiences that we can only read and wonder about. We can never truly comprehend the violence and loss these brave men and women face day to day, while we at home have our BBQ’s and get wasted on booze, drugs and broken dreams. Let’s take a moment and reflect on this. Then let us do everything we can to get our boys back home safely to their families. We must put the blame on the politicians and kick their asses out of Washington. We can never again waste our youth on senseless endeavors and oil slicked lies. So read up and learn everything you can….then get off your lazy asses and vote!