Tuesday, 31 Mary 2022
Another Memorial Day has passed. I was invited to a get-together at Holley and Jim’s, and as usual, they had way too much food for me, Tom, and Kurt. They are great hosts and seem to relish putting on the “do” for people.
A friend posted on Facebook about Memorial Day and how it differs from other days associated with the military. The post said “Armed Forces Day is for those still in their uniform. Veterans Day is for those who hung up their uniform” and “Memorial Day is for those who never made it out of their uniform.” I think that’s a pretty succinct way of explaining the difference between the three days we honor the military.
I’ve had a lot of people thank me for my service. I’ve also read where many military personnel don’t like to hear that statement from civilians. Part of the reason I don’t like it was I didn’t willingly go into the military even though I enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. The alternative was to be drafted into the Army or the Marine Corps. Probably, the Army was a better fit for me since my Dad was in the Army and a lot of Boy Scouts is militaristic in the Army sense. However, that was back during the days of the Viet Nam conflict (not war) and the odds of you coming back in one piece were slim.
I can look back on my days in the Coast Guard at little more fondly now as it is in the past. It wasn’t so much fun during the actual enlistment.
I’ve read a great deal about war and conflicts: the Peloponnesian War, the War of Roses, the 100 Years War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and to be honest, none of the actions have any redeeming value. It’s something like the statement “there are no winners in war.”
There is something significant about the idea that the military trains people to be killers and we are surprised when the veterans return home and continue killing – either others or themselves. You might want to check the Gun Violence Archive for their statistics. It predominately for mass shootings.
I’ve never thought the Veterans Administration did a very good job re-introducing veterans to society nor taking care of their ailments once they return. Hopefully I have a myopic view on this and things have changed.
When I enlisted, the Coast Guard gave recruits a hearing test by piling everyone into a room and a corpsman standing on a chair and asking in a whisper “Can you hear me?” If you said yes, they passed you on hearing. When I was discharged, they put me in a sound proof chamber and gave me a proper hearing exam but mostly to ensure that I did not claim hearing loss after discharge so the Veterans Administration wouldn’t have to deal with me.
When I signed up for the Coast Guard, I was told that I would have free medical care for life. After my discharge, I was supposed to be able to walk into any Veterans Hospital and be given service. George H.W. Bush put an end to that. Luckily, I can still go the the Veterans Administration for treatment but I’m on the bottom of the list for services with the VA.
I used to tell my students that war was an excellent form of population control. You send the most reproductively viable segment of your population off to be killed and the only people left behind as sperm donors or egg donors are the old and decrepit. Some historians say WWI was the point of the beginning of the decline of the British Empire because of the number of deaths of young British men in the trenches during WWI.
I guess what I am saying is that Memorial Day has a different connotation to me. It has a sadness for me that so many young people were killed for reasons of ego, money, and domination of others. With the conflict in the Ukraine, I think we are perilously close to another worldwide conflict for no good reason.
A lot of people fly the American flag daily (and mostly incorrectly) and especially on Memorial Day. I wonder if it would be more fitting to fly these flags at half mast to honor the fallen. You are supposed to fly it at half mast until noon. I don’t see many people doing that.
Stay tuned.