veterans' day thoughts

My father-in-law wrote this today, in preparation for Veterans' Day.

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We pretend that our war dead 'gave' their lives. That is a civic fiction (happily pushed by veterans and veterans' families). Many soldiers didn't think they would die. And many were forced into the military service. I don't think we need to pretend and honor them for 'giving.'

But we do need to honor them.

We honor them because they did serve, however reluctantly.

We honor them because their lives were taken from them. I think it is nice "if our cause it is just." But they did not make the decisions that led to war, so we honor them no matter what the cause was. That means we should honor Confederate dead, even though we hate their cause. Germans should honor their war dead, as should the Japanese — not including war criminals, of course. (If we honor only those who died in a just cause, then we should honor only those who willingly died, and how could we determine that?)

We should also mourn not just their lost lives, but also the lost lives of their descendants who were never born.

Tomorrow we honor not only them, but those who serve and served, because death isn't the only cost soldiers in warfare pay. Some are wounded, both physically and psychologically. And all are in line for suffering or death.