Memorial Day 2011

A poem by Henry Reed from World War Two captures the brutal absurdity of war as it depicts a new soldier listening to a field lecture on the various parts of a rifle and compares it to the beauty of the world around him. Unspoken is the need, from time to time, to fight for the freedom to enjoy that beauty.

Naming of Parts

By Henry Reed

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,

We shall have what to do after firing. But today,

Today we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,

And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this

Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,

When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,

Which in your case you have not got. The branches

Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,

Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released

With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me

See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy

If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms

Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see

Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this

Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it

Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this

Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards

The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers

They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy

If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,

And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,

Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom

Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,

For today we have naming of parts.

Editor's note: Henry Reed was a British poet and we should recall that WWII cemeteries

are filled with our British, Canadian, and Australian allies as well.

Memorial Day Memories

By Alan Caruba

I have a few enduring Memorial Day memories. Most involve my Dad who never served in the military, being too young for the First World War and too old for the Second twenty years later.

Even so, there was never a Memorial Day in Maplewood, NJ when we did not go down to the park, also named Memorial, and watch the veterans, the police and fire units, the Boy and Girl Scouts, and the high school band march to the grassy area where town officials would give speeches about the fallen heroes. Little Maplewood had its share that had served in all of the nation’s wars.

Even as a child I understood my Father’s pride in his nation and in those who had fought to protect its liberty. Later, when I was in the military my other memory was marching through downtown Columbus, Georgia during the Memorial Day parades.

It is a different kind of holiday from Fourth of July. It’s about remembrance. It is focused on those whom Lincoln said gave their last full measure of devotion to their nation.

It is a sober holiday, but it is also a day for picnics and barbecues. In a way, those who died are honored by the mundane activities in which we engage on a day dedicated to their memory. They would have done the same had they lived.

What strikes me most is the way, then and now, so many young men enlisted to fight our wars. Others accepted conscription and fought bravely too. What is so very different is today’s all-volunteer military. Nobody has to sign up for duty, but they do.

The demarcation line came in the 1970s when Americans, seeing the carnage of war in Vietnam on their nightly television news, watching the casualty numbers grow, gradually came together to protest year after year until the conflict ended.

While we have great pride in our military, regarding it more highly than other element of our government, Americans have become detached from the bloodletting of war. They are fought at great distances. Mostly, Americans are highly resistant to any losses in battle despite the records in past wars of literally thousands of casualties. Those were wars we needed to win.

The news lately was of the one thousandth casualty in Afghanistan. We have been there since shortly after 9/11. We lose 40,000 people to death on our highways every year; more by far than the totals of those we have lost in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It doesn’t make it any less painful for their families, but in the long battle for freedom, it is a remarkably small price to pay and the extraordinary part is that there are still heroes willing to pay the price.

Plato said it best. “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Arlington Cemetery

Unlike previous presidents, Barack Obama will NOT be here on Memorial Day.

Memorial Day: The Blackbird and You

By Alan Caruba

It’s about one of the most remarkable airplanes ever produced by this nation, a spy plane that kept an eye on a lot of evil people in bad places. It was known as the Blackbird and was built to replace the U-2 in which Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet Russia in 1960.

It was built to fly three miles higher and a heck of a lot faster, but it was also built to be able to take a photo of the license plate on Nikita Khrushchev’s car or Fidel Castro lighting a cigar.

They only made forty of these remarkable airplanes. Only 93 pilots would ever fly the aircraft throughout the quarter century it served during the Cold War.

Affectionately the crew called it the “sled”. In 1986, the Blackbird flew over Libya when its dictator challenged the United States and it accelerated away from two missiles fired at it so fast the pilot and fellow crew member crossed the Mediterranean Sea and were just south of Sicily in mere moments. They had to turn around to be refueled over Gibraltar.

The last of the Blackbirds sits in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space museum in Washington, D.C. In its last trip there, the Blackbird broke four speed records from Los Angeles to its final place of honor.

I tell you this on Memorial Day so you will remember, not just the fallen who gave their lives for America or those who served until honorable discharge, but so that you will remember our men and women in uniform who are presently in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in other places, on board ships of war to protect the world’s sea lanes or flying over a dangerous world.

I want you to look at those old men in their veteran’s hats and remember, too, that they once were young and that they stood watch during the Cold War or braved and survived the hell of war so that you did not have to experience it on your street, in your town or city.

To be candid, I have no use for those pukes who are forever prattling about peace in a world that is armed to the teeth because it is full of evil and/or crazed people for whom the dignity of man and the whole reason for America, liberty, means nothing.

I chafe at hearing those who speak ill of those who put their lives on line to preserve for ourselves and to extend freedom where it never existed. Iraq is one such place. It borders Iran where they hang people for the crime of being human.

On this Memorial Day, only the discipline and sense of honor that military duty imbues will secure the Commander-in-Chief a salute. He has not earned it. He does not deserve it. All his instincts are opposed to the things for which this nation stands. He found it hard to put his hand over his heart or wear a flag pin in his lapel when he was campaigning.

But I will salute everyone else who ever put on the uniform of his or her nation, marine, soldier, airman, sailor, coast guard. And I will say a prayer for those no longer with us on this Memorial Day.

There’s a short film you can watch at
http://www.greatdanepromilitary.com/SR-71/index.htm

Memorial Day 2008

By Alan Caruba

Anyone who has ever worn the uniform of his nation feels differently about Memorial Day than those who have not had that privilege. There is a bond between soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen.

Whether we fought on the battlefield or just protected the nation during the Cold War, we took an oath, not dissimilar from that which the President takes, to protect and preserve the Constitution.

The great lesson of history is that democracy must be defended because it has many enemies. While it has spread to many parts of the world, vast populations still live under tyranny in Africa, in China, in Russia, in the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Sometimes I think the entire argument over the war in Iraq is one over whether this nation has the courage to defend and extend democracy. As unpopular as President Bush is and probably deserves to be, he is still right that the expansion of democracy is the best way to undermine the forces of evil that would enslave populations and would do harm to our nation.

It is much easier to do that harm these days. A single nuclear device could destroy an entire city. A biological weapon could sicken and kill thousands.

When a person like Mamoud Amadinejad openly calls for the destruction of the “Great Satan”, America, and the “Little Satan”, Israel, we need to take him at his word. It is not so much the millions of Iranians we need fear as the handful of despots who rule them through fear and intimidation.

Memorial Day is about courage.

If we lack the courage to defend our nation, even if that requires we send our best young men and women to fight on the other side of the globe, we will lose our nation here at home. If we lack the courage to fight for our beliefs, our values, we shall surely lose them to a conquering enemy, either within or beyond our shores.

We honor the courage of those from Valley Forge to Gettysburg, from Normandy to Iwo Jima, and now to Baghdad and Kabul, who fought and sometimes gave their lives for the freedoms we too often take too lightly.

It takes courage to be free. It takes none to be a slave.