The Patriot Post® · Memorial Day's Purpose Forgotten

By Albert Maslar ·
https://patriotpost.us/commentary/25996-memorial-days-purpose-forgotten-2014-05-22

Memorial Day commemorates fallen war veterans and it was originally known as Decoration Day – a day to remember fallen veterans by decorating their graves with flowers, flags and tributes. Forgotten is the fact that all of the U.S. Military are volunteers who were conned by advertising into joining the National Guard and other units on the promise of free college education and job-training.

Those promises ring hollow in that they actually translated into death, disability, loss of limbs and eyes, stigma, life-long health problems, trauma, brain injuries, and continuing high suicide rates. Government defaulted on those promises as veterans suffered loss of college due to costs and few job prospects for graduates, loss of previous jobs, no new job prospects, and family breakups. What have we wrought? Should not redressing of these wrongs be part of Memorial Day whose original purpose has long been misdirected?

It is hard for college education to be free when there are multiple deployments into war zones, each raising the risk of being an added statistic.

It is like our Military must be self-insured for their military medical injuries, and once the “Comandeer”-in-Chief commented that they DID volunteer. Memorial Day should be every day until the unending wars are ended. The only way they can be is by unilateral withdrawal from Arab oil lands and a return to self-sufficiency and related job growth.

Politicians seem to love war that, despite their rhetoric to stop war if elected, nothing changes; life goes on… or not. Wars continue but only the names change to insurgency, rebellion, uprising, disturbance, or demonstration. But are they satisfied not having ended the old wars before it is on to new wars? Don Quixote is alive and well in Congress and both Administrations.

The best ordinary people can do is pray and honor the dead and wounded by holding patriotic flag-waving parades and gatherings while nondescript politicians make weak-minded speeches about the valor of those who are protecting liberty. Meanwhile forces within government work diligently to restrict and remove individual liberties in the name of security.

World War I was a brutal blood bath and was touted as “The War To End War,” while WWII was called “The Big One” and is often referred to as “The Good War.” Meanwhile, Obama holds that the Afghanistan War is the right war at the right time. The Iraq War was heralded by previous President George W. Bush as a “War to Prevent War,” truly an oxymoron of the nth degree.

Going back to the question of how these fallen volunteers can be honored and remembered, the ultimate idyllic answer is: Stop all wars unilaterally, so that by the time the last surviving war veteran has died, there will be no more war veterans to memorialize their fallen comrades.

Senator John McCain is a war veteran and WAS a war hero for merely being a prisoner of war, and since then has been a wannabe president and outspoken war-hawk. McCain secretly met with Syrian rebel revolutionaries to see what he could do to involve the U.S. in yet another Iraq-type fiasco. Old wars have not yet ended so new wars are planned. McCain calls for preemptive attacks on Iran. Been there, done that – IRAQ.

General Ike Eisenhower became President and he hated war. So why are McCain, Kerry, Graham, and both political parties up in arms about doing the unthinkable – defending Syrian enemy rebels that are against American government? Unintended consequences in Egypt and Libya exacerbated dictatorial conditions.

Everything military and other interference the U.S. touched in the Middle East has favored radical Islam, America’s enemy in the short and obviously the long run. America defended Muslims in Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Africa, among other places, while drug-related Afghanistan President Karzai DEMANDS what and how the U.S. is to help, and now Syrian rebels DEMAND air cover and support, military equipment, money, and a laundry list of what the U.S. MUST do.

A pox on their radical houses and their thousands dead. America’s own Civil War resulted in about 564,000 dead. Both Syrian sides are terrorist radical human rights offenders and now is the time to do what Ron Paul would have done: Withdraw all American military and money from all these foreign terrorist cesspools.

We should be mindful that 564,000 Civil War deaths were at a time when the population of America was about 30 million, roughly one-tenth of what it is today. That equates to 5.64 million dead if the Civil War occurred or reoccurred in the 21st century.

Let Muslims throw the rocks they always throw for the benefit of American TV. Take American taxpayer money and war materials away from a peoples that have been at war since the birth of Islam in 632 A.D. on the original hajj as Muhammad migrated to Medina and ended with conquest of Mecca. Fighting, war and violence is in their DNA as the word “Islam” means “submission” or “surrender.” Since its inception, Islam has been at never-ending war with the world of heretics and unbelievers. America should pull a Pontius Pilate and wash its hands of all Muslim sabre-rattling. No money and no war material equates to much limited war and violence.

With all due respect for the 1.2 billion Muslims living in 57 Muslim countries at any given time, about 50 Muslim countries are engaged in war, violence and terror, so Muslims have some serious soul-searching to do; but do they speak up against violence? As Sargent Bilko of the 1950s Phil Silvers show Sargent was wont to shout to his recruits, “I can’t hear you.”

Case in point: A Muslim lady health aide, in response to the police capture and possible interrogation of the Boston Marathon bomber, said, “They didn’t read him his rights.” Denial, denial, denial; in the face of outright evidence, deny any Muslim responsibility first. Islam allows lies if the lies benefit Islam.

The sticking point with WMDs is that once one nuclear weapon is used, bedlam will break out and every weapon of every type will be spent on the basis of the military philosophy of “Use ‘em or Lose 'em,” spelling the end of civilization as we know it.

Sometimes it is wiser to use the Biblical admonition to “Turn the other cheek,” because the revenge brought about by President George W. Bush for the 3,000 deaths in destruction of the NY Twin Towers has resulted in more than double that many casualties in the Afghanistan-Iraq Wars that seem to be without end, and extending the recession now into its tenth year, the rising record Wall Street prices notwithstanding. The Hatfield-McCoy feud lasted for generations to the point that everyone forgot the feud was over a lousy pig, and now a hundred million radicalized Muslims are fighting what they call pigs, Jews, Christians, and Americans.

Americans forget the brave Military sacrifices of blood and money, except for “Memorial Day” that morphed into a long holiday weekend, while half the population whines about not getting enough freebies, and another half complains about paying higher taxes to support the takers, magnified by the continuing problem of insufficient jobs for the actual 15% unemployed and underemployed, including collegians, graduated or not, having to deal with unpayable college loans.

Just when America needs God the most, God and the Ten Commandments have become politically incorrect and illegal, as military chaplains are not allowed to mention Jesus in performance of military funerals, or in religious services for the benefit of America’s brave volunteers who may truly be shedding their blood in vain. There is always a conundrum, and now that Christianity has been banished from the military, Atheists are getting their own clergy. Some memorial as only in America can evil be deity, but DEITY is evil.