Wednesday, May 30th, was Memorial Day in
the United States. The commemoration began in 1868 shortly after the American
Civil War, when townsmen in several communities came together to decorate the
graves of the fallen on the last Monday in May. The practice began in the northern
states but soon spread to the south and the annual remembrance ceremony soon
took on the name Decoration Day. As wars proliferated in the twentieth century
the commemoration eventually lost its association with the Civil War and was
increasingly referred to nationally as Memorial Day, eventually becoming a
federal holiday.
The American
Civil war killed 655,000 soldiers, more than all other U.S. wars before or
since combined. It was the first modern war in that it relied on railroads and
steamships. The North also destroyed the livelihoods of and deliberately
starved civilian populations to reduce the South’s will to resist. It was a war
fought on U.S. soil and experienced first hand by the American people.
Today
Memorial Day has largely lost its connection with dead soldiers and is instead
best noted for being regarded as the first day of summer for recreational
purposes. Beaches open up, the lifeguards come out and the smell of barbecued
meat fills the air. The declining number of veterans of World War 2, Korea and
Vietnam work hard to remember the dead but there is little interest from a
public that has become increasingly detached from its non-conscripted
professional army.
There is a
certain irony in how a holiday commemorating a war fought 150 years ago that
had devastating impact, a memento mori to honor the dead and warn the living
about the reality of war, is now little more than a bump in the road on the way
to the beach as the United States government is openly contemplating new
military initiatives in Asia and possibly even in Europe.
The truth is
that Americans have forgotten about the War Between the States and, protected
by two broad oceans, have no idea whatsoever about the horrible reality that
war represents. They have become addicted to war pari passu without any
perception of what that might mean if an adversary were to develop the
capability to strike the homeland. For most Americans war is little more than a
video game, seen in snippets on the nightly news. It is a peculiar form of cultural
blindness, an exercise that involves foreign people in faraway places and is
not to be taken seriously. The rest of the world, which has experienced far too
much of war’s devastation first hand has quite a different viewpoint, however.
For the past
three weeks I have been traveling in Asia and Europe, to include stops in
America’s two enemies du jour Iran and Russia. World War 2, ended 73 years ago,
is still clearly visible in the ruins and shattered lives. St Petersburg in
Russia is still restoring palaces vandalized and burnt by the Germans. In
Germany, the historic Medieval Hanseatic port of Rostock was 80% reduced to
rubble by U.S. and British bombers. It was a war in which cities burned and 80
million soldiers and civilians died, only one half of one per cent of which
were Americans. Russia lost 27 million alone. The continental United States
alone among major belligerents was untouched by the fighting.
Iran too
bears the scars of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, in which Washington supported
Baghdad. Half a million Iranians and Iraqis died. In the deliberately
never-ending War on Terror 8,000 Americans have lost their lives in places few
would be able to find on a map but, by some estimates, so have nearly 4 million
Muslims directly and as collateral damage. Three foreign governments have been
overthrown and Washington is seeking to add Damascus to that toll, with
suggestions that even Moscow is being targeted for change.
All of which
led on my recent travels to discussions in which many non-Americans wondered
openly “What has happened to the United States?” Most went so far as to opine
that Washington is the world’s greatest threat to peace, not China, Russia or
Iran. Sadly, I had to agree.
So it
behooves all Americans if good will to band together to end the madness. When
Memorial Day comes around next year let it again be a commemoration of the
horror of war, the death and destruction. With that in mind, all thoughts of
confrontation should vanish to be replaced by demands for negotiation and
accommodation. And as for the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, give them
a Memorial Day gift and bring them home. Every one of them.
