Veterans Day. Once it was Armistice Day, to remember the 11th hour of the 11th day
of the 11th month, when the Great War, the War to End All Wars, was itself ended,
to remember the moment when the population could settle down and rebuild for a
glorious future in a new world founded on peace, not war. I think a lot of people
truly believed that, at the end of 1918 after four years of one of the ugliest
wars the world had yet seen. Now of course, we call it Veterans Day, because we
have seen so many wars since then that it would be silly to memorialize one. Our
idealism has faded, and here we are in another war again. They keep saying it's a
new kind, but the dead are still just as dead, I notice. I doubt that I know
anyone who believes this war will be our last.
Veterans Day. Lucky thing it is, because some kids would otherwise have been in
school in Queens, and might have been hurt or killed when the plane went down
there.
Veterans Day. Tragedy that it is, because some people were at home in Queens who
might otherwise have been at work, safe from the giant aircraft whose engines
plunged through houses, whose full load of fuel set homes on fire.
Veterans Day. I am glad to honor those who have placed their own mortal bodies
between their loved homes and the war's desolation. I am glad, even, to honor
those who took the risk of doing so, whether voluntarily or via the draft. I
believe in moments of solemnity, to ensure that courage and suffering are not
forgotten. I just wish, though, that we had an opposite but equivalent day of
derision, to remember with scorn those who have started the wars, those who
committed such atrocities that war seemed to be the only answer, those who
promoted combat for their own glory, and, not least, those who, not even believing
in the cause, sent younger men and women off to die. What's the opposite of a
holiday? What I have in mind is not so much a day of mourning but a day of
scorning, of deprecation rather than celebration.
I don't know where the moral is, or where this song should end,
But I wonder just how many wars are fought between good friends.
And those who give the orders, they are not the ones to die,
It's Bell and it's O'Malley, and the likes of you and I.
There were rose, roses, there were roses
And the tears of the people ran together.
-- Tommy Makem, There Were Roses
All rights and all wrongs have long since blown away,
For causes are ashes where children lie slain....
-- Stan Rogers, House of Orange
Posted by dichroic at November 12, 2001 04:59 PM