06/06/05

What do we commemorate and honor on Memorial Day? Is it bravery? That could certainly be credited to most on both sides in any conflict. Is it loyalty? Same there too. Is it sacrifice? They all would have preferred to live, but many were supporting their highest values through their gamble of military service. What was worth all these human lives? Aren't these questions just as valid in every military cemetery around the world? Young people, the bulk of all armies, are asked to kill people they don't know and who've done them no harm personally. These new deadly enemies are more alike than unlike, despite what eager propagandists on both sides say. Those cheerleaders for war do their best to convince their own countrymen that God is with them and that their opponents are agents of the devil. Anyone who doubts this must read Mark Twain’s 'The War Prayer,' so provocative it wasn't published until after the death of the author...

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001109.html

from The Free Liberal, by Richard A. Cheatham


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp