“I Am A Child Of The Sixties…”

And women. pic.twitter.com/ZeZGYKf3xv

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 29, 2023

And this is the militaristic bullshit I despise on Memorial Day. I don’t care what nouns they use, or don’t use. The entire sentiment is wrong.

The day began as a day to remember dead family members lost in the Civil War. It was an informal observance in the south, of a war fought to maintain the Union and, belatedly, free the slaves. The revolutionary war was fought for our freedom, but one of the freedoms established from that was no standing army. We didn’t have one for a century or more. The Pentagon was built by FDR as a government archive, not as a permanent military headquarters. He expected the huge wartime military to disband, as it always had before.

We didn’t win our freedom in the Civil War, or any territorial or imperialist war of the 19th century; nor in any war in the 20th century.. Nobody won our freedom, or preserved it, in Korea or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Especially in Vietnam and Afghanistan, a lot of people died to no purpose at all.

It’s Memorial Day. Honor the dead. They deserve that much. But leave the bullshit to others. And leave them to their own devices.