Memorial Day

Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.

-Kurt Vonnegut

I have to agree with the crusty old Hoosier on this one, although I like a parade as much as the next guy. Let’s have more well-oiled brass and woodwinds (at least well-oiled musicians), and fewer guns. I cannot help but muse upon the shameful expropriation of peoples’ lives and labor that is what passes for war in today’s double-speak. It is sobering to think about what other services might be provided with the resources spent in the seemingly endless fiasco in Iraq. Medi-Cal can provide healthcare for around seven million Californians for a cost of about $12 Billion per year. Compare that to over $100 Billion to continue the fighting in Iraq though early autumn. That doesn’t even begin to account for the devastating cost of loss of life limb and civil rights.

I usually visit our local cemeteries on Memorial Day. It’s our family tradition. The Spanish – American war veteran’s cemetery in Sacramento has a monument made from relics from the USS Maine, as well as my wife’s grandfather’s grave. The Spanish – American War Veterans Association in Sacramento became a massively powerful civic organization from the 1920s through the 1950s. From reading scrapbooks of clippings, it seems they were like a combination of the Kiwanis, Elks, and Rotary, with a little of the Klan mentality thrown in for a spice. I am glad all those veterans were long gone by the time excavators determined that the Maine’s explosion was not due to sabotage. But we get to keep Puerto Rico anyway. A war predicated by deceit? By George, I can’t believe it.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.