It is Memorial Day

Summer is book ended by two holidays, Memorial Day and Labor Day. Every Memorial Day I have high hopes for the summer, but usually by Labor Day I am disappointed. You would think by now I would have learned my lesson. This year, my expectations for summer are very low, not because I learned my lesson, but because COVID-19 is here and it is not going anywhere. Sure there will likely be a slow down the infection rate, but it will not go away and come fall, we will see the second wave and everyone will be surprised.

So I would like to turn my attention to Memorial Day itself, not as the beginning of summer, or a day of BBQ, but rather as a solemn day of remembrance. To be clear, Memorial Day is for soldiers who lost their lives during conflicts. Veterans Day is when we show our gratitude to those who survived those conflicts.

I am a veteran, I have been to war, but more importantly, I have seen the results of war. I am going to state clearly and without regret, that war is never worth the end result. I am not going to tell you the United States should not have entered World War II, we had no choice and it was the right thing to do. However, World War II never should have started in the first place. Adolf Hitler's dream of world domination was not on any level worth the lose of even one life, let alone millions. I say the same thing about the 2nd gulf war, whatever reason George W. Bush had for starting that war, was not worth the end result.

I am certain I will receive criticism for this point of view, after all, isn't the world a better place without Saddam Hussein? The answer is, no the world is not a better place, because nothing has particularly changed. The middle east is still a mess and has turned into nothing more than meat grinder for American troops. Certainly Iraq is a democracy now, but it is one that is being propped up by 25,000 American troops who remain stationed there and the billions of dollars a year we send in aid. If we were to withdraw, the people of that nation would likely vote themselves into another dictatorship in just a few years, so no meaningful change has occurred in the world as a result of that war.

I do believe we should remember these men and women who sacrificed themselves and we should show them the respect they earned, we should not fool ourselves into thinking their sacrifice had meaning, because it did not. War should not be glorified, it should be viewed as a failure of humanity.

Edit:
So think about this when deciding if the Iraq war was necessary or not. If Iraq's primary export was strawberry jelly rather than oil, but everything else was the same, would we have still found it necessary to invade?