I was in Japan on Memorial Day-and while I remembered the day in my mind-I also did little in the way of observing it. Certainly did not go to any ceremonies or the like. AFN had a bit about Memorial Services at the respective bases in Japan and ran the usual war movies.
A good number of bloggers ran poignant pieces about the cost in human lives that the nations 200+ year history has taken to maintain. Regardless of when they served, all the veterans interred in our cemeteries sacrificed the comforts of home and absented themselves from the warmth and affection of loved ones. Since 1776, more than 1.5 million Americans have lost their lives while in uniform. Their sacrifices need to be honored, if for no other reason than that it reminds us of our history and the great price that has been paid for all Americans.
However there is a nagging voice of doubt in the back of my head, that points out that much of the words written-while dutiful and laudatory-miss an important point. Namely that the world has failed to keep its part of the bargain these men ( and women) made when they went off to war in the first place. Namely that the world was supposed to improve itself so that their sons and daughters would never have to make the same sacrifice that they had to make.
I find it exceedingly troubling that in our current time-we have pretty much come to accept continuous warfare as a fact of life. For just about all of the 29 years I served on active duty in the Navy-American forces were in combat somewhere in the world. The last decade has seen the armed forces at war for the entire time. The odds are pretty good that they will be fighting for the next decade as well. And there seems to be a begrudging acceptance of this, as the way it was and will ever be.
This is progress?
That was never supposed to be the deal. In two world wars alone-75 million people died world wide. The world was supposed to find a saner way to run the planet. And yet, now after 6000 years of civilization’s history-we still try to solve problems through the clash of arms. This has to change. To paraphrase Herman Wouk:
[These events] stand as a monument to the subhuman stupidity of
warfare in our age of science and industry. War has always been a violent blind man’s bluff played with soldiers lives and nations resources. But the time for it is over. As the race has outgrown human sacrifice, human slavery, and dueling, it has to outgrow war…..The silliness of it all would be slapstick if it were not so
tragic.
The living have failed the dead. They broke the covenant-namely that their sacrifice was supposed to mean something and leave behind a better world for the generations that would follow. If anything, despite all our technology, the world is worse off today.
But what of the advances and the liberated peoples you ask? The liberation only has meaning if it brings material improvements in their lives. In so many places, that simply is not happening-if anything a lot of people are losing ground not gaining it.
If the sacrifices of our Soldiers and Sailors, Airman and Marines is to truly have meaning, we have to show improvements in this world. Not just in our own nation but in the other nations as a whole. That improvement was what they were really fighting for-we dishonor their memory by not taking that aim to heart.
Wouk’s admonition remains germane-Either war is finished, or we are.