Let us remember.

Memorial Day

“Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave.”

Muhammad

Today is Memorial Day in America; the day we remember our fallen heroes, our war dead. It is always a bitter-sweet day for me. I remember my father, who fought for almost three years in the Pacific during World War II. He survived, but afterwards he didn't talk much about the war except when he had enough liquor in him. The photographs he brought back told it all; battlefields of dead Japanese soldiers, killed when our Marines took an island. He told stories when he was drunk of sinking rafts of women and children in the harbors because they were rigged to explode when they got close to our Naval ships. It left him scarred for life.

My first husband served in the Vietnam Nam war. He flew missions over Cambodia and Laos when our government assured us we were not. He never had to see what happened on the ground because he was high above it, in an electronic warfare plane. He said his job was simply to push buttons. Removed from the action, he was also relieved of emotional impact of war.

Today our young men and women are serving in Afghanistan as bravely as any soldiers in any war. They go to war with the certainty that they are defending our freedom, serving our country with valor and dignity. And they are. My question is, when will it stop?

When will we define valor as the courage to live in peace? When, exactly will we find our heroes among those who give their lives making peace instead of war? When will we stop sending our best and brightest onto battlefields where they may die, or be maimed, or kill other, equally precious, young men and women. When will we stop making war?

I know there are 'just wars'; the world could not turn its back on Hitler's Germany. I know that al-Qaeda attacked us, and will try again. I know that we have to defend ourselves, but my question is still the same. When will we human beings stop dividing ourselves into 'us' and 'them', and put our energy and our resources into figuring out how to share the earth in peace. When will we stop being this tribe or that, this religion or that, this political party or that, this race or that, and simply start being One People? How many more of our children will need to be remembered on Memorial Day?

In the spirit,

Jane