It is Memorial Day weekend. That means we all need to pause to consider all of those who died in the service of the United States. In a moment we will do exactly that for the folks who gave their all in both the E-2 and C-2 communities from which I have my roots in Naval Aviation.
But this year, Memorial Day seems both poignant and also ironic. For we, the living, have seen the sacrifice of the dead betrayed by those who would take their patriotism and use it as a prop – or even worse, betray the very Constitution they fought to defend.
On January 6th we saw the unthinkable happen and we have yet to see a proper accounting and accountability for that terrible bit of treachery inspired by an unfit man who never should have crossed the door into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
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.
The popular phrase is that these men and women died “defending freedom.” Except, of course, they didn’t die defending American freedom because American Freedom has not been under attack since World War II. ( Until 2016, that is). To be blunt, the sacrifices of the last 80 years have been more equivalent to the wars the British Empire fought to preserve the Empire than some noble struggle. Sure we can try to put a good spin on the continually increasing sacrifices over the years, but American Freedom was never seriously under threat. Certainly, that hasn’t been true since the Cold War ended, if not well before.
As Andrew Bacevich noted a few years ago:
Earlier this month, I spent a day visiting Marseilles to videotape a documentary about recent American military history, specifically the ongoing wars that most of us prefer not to think about.
Lest there be any confusion, let me be more specific. I am not referring to Marseilles (mar-SAY), France, that nation’s largest port and second-largest city with a population approaching 900,000. No, my destination was Marseilles (mar-SAYLZ), Illinois, a small prairie town with a population hovering around 5,000.……..
Today, Marseilles retains one modest claim to fame. It’s the site of the Middle East Conflicts Wall Memorial, dedicated in June 2004 and situated on an open plot of ground between the river and the old Nabisco plant. The memorial, created and supported by a conglomeration of civic-minded Illinois bikers, many of them Vietnam veterans, is the only one in the nation that commemorates those who have died during the course of the various campaigns, skirmishes, protracted wars, and nasty mishaps that have involved U.S. forces in various quarters of the Greater Middle East over the past several decades.……..
Those whose names are engraved on the wall in Marseilles died in service to their country. Of that, there is no doubt. Whether they died to advance the cause of freedom or even the wellbeing of the United States is another matter entirely. Terms that might more accurately convey why these wars began and why they have persisted for so long including oil, dominion, hubris, a continuing and stubborn refusal among policymakers to own up to their own stupendous folly, and the collective negligence of citizens who have become oblivious to where American troops happen to be fighting at any given moment and why. Some might add to the above list an inability to distinguish between our own interests and those of putative allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel.…..
……Marseilles is exactly the right place to situate the nation’s only existing memorial to its Middle Eastern wars. Where better, after all, to commemorate conflicts that Americans would like to ignore or forget than in a hollowing-out Midwestern town they never knew existed in the first place?
There of course, will be those who take ire at the tone of Bacevich’s remarks. But he is not wrong. It in no way dishonors their memories to demand that we produce a better country for their children. We have failed miserably on that score as the events of the last few years have proven.
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 our soldiers’ and sailors’ sacrifices, Airman’s and Marines’s are to have meaning truly, we have to show improvements in this world. Not just in our own nation but 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.
And what does it mean that while brave men and women were fighting for the country overseas, the biggest threat to our freedom was actually generated from within our own borders?
Herman Wouk’s admonition remains germane-Either war is finished, or we are.