Memorial Day

I was at once elated with the prospect of a holiday from work.  The last we had was a half-day on Good Friday and before that it was New Years Day….I know right?  But we can never allow the day of barbecue and rest to supplant the significance of the day. 

While watching a national PBS concert honoring lost and wounded veterans, I was thoroughly moved by the awesome power of war and how that theme has shaped our national identity.  A die-hard commitment to the core principles of the Constitution is manifest in the vast casualties in our short history.  Giving one's life, or at least volunteering for a strong possibility of it, is the highest possible level of personal commitment to a cause.  The budding principles of freedom and equality are blooming before our eyes and our collective belief in these abstract words carries an enormous pricetag: human life.

Our national history is framed by battles with other nations: for independence x2, for land, and to preserve our interests abroad.  We've fought each other over economic means.  We’ve fought to quash "threats" and "preserve democracy abroad."  All of these man-made concepts have cost us thousands of lives and I posit that from this we derive an identity of standing up for what we want or what we think is right.

I think this is something of which to be proud-- this assertive, principled identity-- but we must remain ever mindful of the invaluable worth of human life.  It is part of our Enlightened national philosophy and it seems as though we have become comfortable with valuing some lives as "expendable".  It is part of that for which we should stand up. 

On this PBS program,  wounded soldiers were shown with caved-in skulls and completely reconstructed faces.  There were soldiers with no limbs, vegetated brains and many other life-dominating ailments.  Those lives, and the lives of their families and friends, are greatly impacted by these injuries.  I admire those men and women for holding steadfast to their commitment-- for suffering the consequences of war for the country they love and not renouncing it.  It is more than I think we could expect of anyone in their position.

We should never go to war on a whim…if just one life is blasted or taken in the process, it had better be a good reason and it had better be justified.  Once congressional investigations-- predominantly called for by Sen. Patrick Leahy-- reveal the poorly reasoned, planned, and executed manners of this war, I think we should look to those responsible and ask "Was it worth it?"