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How To Improve Memorial Day

Every year, on Veteran's Day, I suggest a way to improve it by making it more real, honest, and fair. I have gotten one email that praised the essay.

 Today I would like to improve Memorial Day. Let's start with the premise that it is a fine thing to remember and honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

 The question is, why should those honorees be restricted to members of the U.S. military? Let's honor the civilians killed intentionally or unintentionally by the U.S. military. The civilians' sacrifices were just as real. Why do we discriminate in such an unfair way?
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Comments

Ed said…
I don't see why not. The vast majority of 'The People' in the United States could not tell you what the difference is between Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. The only thing that they know is it is a holiday and they don't have to go to the job, if they happen to have one. There is also a large segment of 'The People' that think that those in the military that died in combat got what the deserved and don't honor them. Adding the civilians would give them a reason to embrace the holiday.

Perhaps combine them into just one holiday to honor all military that served/died and all civilians that died. Then make Cinco de Mayo an official holiday versus the semi-official one that is celebrated now in this country. It receives very little notice in Mexico where their Independence Day is the big celebration.
May 29, 2017 at 5:36 PM
Anonymous said…
What! And take OUR holiday and allow those subjected to "collateral damage" to be remembered? No way, Jose. Bring on the drones. Let's have a big cheer for exceptionalism, hegemony and imperialism. When will it ever end?

Chris
May 29, 2017 at 8:23 PM
kaBLOOnie Boonster said…
The idea of writing this post occurred to me when I treated myself to a real breakfast at a sit-down restaurant. Of course, that meant there was a television on both sides of me. It was Fox News. They were glorifying the military with rituals that looked like some kind of sicko religious sacrament.

At least the volume was turned off.
May 29, 2017 at 8:29 PM
jay said…
I think some of you guys have been on the road too long. Though let me start with agreeing that too many in this nation go silly deifying military service, e.g: "Well let me thank you for your service!" to anyone and everyone who was ever in uniform. My Dad was in the Army 1947-48. Stationed for a year in Korea (post WWII, pre-Korean Conflict.) He was a mailman on base, and would have laughed at the idea that he deserved "thanks for his service". He just did his job for 18 months as a young man like everybody else. Big deal.

---All cultures, so far as I know, honor their deceased warriors. Whether or not the wars were misguided is another story altogether. You can't escape that one.

Civilian casualties? I'm pretty sure Vietnamese honor their dead from that war, military AND civilian. But that's their role....not ours.

Last on "service" ---- At least military folks, in limited numbers and limited degree, put themselves at risk. That is, there's the chance that some of them might get hurt. I'll tell you what chafes my hide: Some career 30-year bureaucrat working for the state or the Feds who is thanked at the end of his or her term for their "service".......

Service? SERVICE? Are you f***ing kidding me? That person was not only overpaid for most of those 30 years in relation to the work performed, but receive outsized pensions the rest of us would give our left nut for. And we are supposed to give them thanks for their "government service"? F*** Y**! I barf on the carpet every time I hear that lunacy.
May 30, 2017 at 2:53 PM
kaBLOOnie Boonster said…
You mean people who work in the government their whole lives aren't HEROES? (grin)
May 30, 2017 at 5:25 PM
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