Want to make me mad? Imply that us liberals don't support the men and women who fight for our country. Barb, a staunch anti-war blogger, remembers the men in her family who've fought to defend our country. It's moving, especially when she talks about her father:
I know the most about the military service of my late father, Bill, who joined the Navy during World War II and was quickly attached to the Marines as a medical corpsman. He was 21 years old. After a short course of rushed medical training, he eventually ended up in the truly horrific beach landing and battle for Iwo Jima in the Pacific. He, too, was very reticent to talk about his service, but over the years I managed to piece together some facts about it. Most of his fellow corpsmen didn't make it out alive. The Japanese forces had a strategy of wounding Marines in order to draw out the medics to come to their rescue. Then they'd proceed to kill the medics.
Go read the rest, and then tell me again how us liberals can't possibly support the troops. We've heard their war stories, we've cried when we heard Taps played at funerals, we know their pain—and we want it to end, not for our sake but for theirs.
As I was listening today to the services on BBC commemorating Remembrance Day, I wondered if such a dignified and solemn ceremony would be held in the United States. I've often been struck by the quiet dignity with which the British remember their fallen heroes. Every small village has a war memorial, and many churches and schools, including Eton College, have bronze plaques with the names of their war dead. Poppy wreaths appear year round, but especially during November, when many Brits wear poppies on their lapels.
I listened to the names read aloud, the latest a father killed in Basra last month, and I wondered if there were any official US service to mourn those Americans who've given their lives in this useless war.
Maybe the difference is that here it's called Remembrance Day, and its purpose is to remember, while in the States, the purpose of Veterans Day seems to be for politicians to give speeches.
I'm glad Barb remembers.
