Thoughts On Veteran's Day

My grandfather fought in "The Great War". He was told that it was the "War to End All Wars". My grandfather died when my father was nine years old in the middle of the 1930's . His lungs, damaged by mustard gas during the war, finally gave out. The wars did not end as was claimed.

My father fought in fought in WWII, "The Big One". He fought to keep his four younger brothers from having to fight. He fought so his future children and grandchildren would not have to experience war. He sent his paychecks home to help his widowed mother "take care of the boys". He survived to spend his life working on an assembly line back when there were still manufacturing jobs in America.

I enlisted and served in the army during "The Vietnam Conflict". I was already anti-war and became even more so when I saw what the army and Vietnam had done to my contemporaries who were being treated in the medical facilities at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. I had enlisted on the advice of a police dectective because the step-father who was molesting me was trying to take me out of the country. My molester told me, that once in Mexico, I would have "no rights" until I was 21. I had no where else to go and no way to make a living. I did however, do my part for my fellow soldiers, and still do what I can to support veterans, and to work against the American culture of war.

My son is a veteran because when he was under eighteen recruiters got to him and laid "one heck of a mind job" on his teenaged head. He refused to return to school. He "served" for fourteen years and still is not getting the treatment he needs from the VA. The waiting lists extend much too far into the future.

Many young people are forced to enlist today because there are no jobs for them in the areas in which they live. America has been exporting jobs which leaves service in the military as one of the only ways to bring in a paycheck. Where are those who are elected to SERVE the people and why are they willing to SACRAFICE our children? They are lining their pockets, ladies and gentlemen, with the spoils of war.

The World's graveyards are often the final resting place for those who have been called by national and religious leaders "to serve" and "to sacrifice". Justifications for "the call to arms" have included insults to the king, the demands of one god or another, protection of the Motherland, the Fatherland, and freedom, the pursuit of liberty or vengence, preemptive strikes against imagined threats, the need to "save" people or to punish them, the desire for power, financial gain, and a compulsion to win.

There is something wrong with the whole idea that "We The People" who inhabit this world OWE nations, leaders, or gods our service and sacrifice. It is the other way around....nations, leaders, and gods exist to better the lives of the members of the community. We owe NOTHING to the parasitic ruling classes who pit the working poor against one another for their personal, financial, or religious adgendas.

It is time to examine those who demand services and solicit sacrifice. Osama bin Laden, founder of Al-Qaeda, masterminded the attack on New York City's World Trade Center. Osama did not end his own life by flying into the Twin Towers on 9/11. He found a group of young men willing to kill themselves for both bin Laden and god. He sent them to die instead. After all, Osama needed to be around to claim credit for the destruction on the television news.

Recently, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi sent several suicide bombers to carry out a well-coordinated operation in Amman, Jordan. The 150 wounded and 57 dead do not include al-Zarqawi who always stays out of harm's way. He simply convinces others that their only purpose in life is to die for his ideology so that he and his legend may live on.

Hitler never led his Nazi army into combat. George W. Bush and his neoconservative cabinet are also content to wage a war in which they and their families do not physically participate. For example, Bush has combat age twin daughters, nieces, and nephews who do not serve or sacrifice. Karl Rove's son is close to recruiter-bait age and I am sure that the daughters of Dick Cheney are fit enough to do their part. Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Irving and William Krystal, and Scooter Libby as primary architects of the War on Iraq should don uniforms and accompany the President and the Vice President to Baghdad where they should stay their course. And Donald Rumsfeld, who said, "Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war" should go along to encourage the others.

To honor our Veterans on this solemn day let's do something different. Let's stop the never-ending cycle of generational war. When the high priests of violence demand a sacrifice, let it be their own hearts they cut out. We need to draft a law that demands service and sacrifice from all elected and religious officials who even whisper "a call to arms".

It is time for "We The People" to demand Accountability. It is time to "just say NO" to the corporations who profit mightily from America's involvement in war. Since war is the result of failed diplomacy, let those who have failed lead their family members and those who choose to follow into battle. Let us no longer sanction war, preemptive, or otherwise, without the full participation of it's creators.

Those who call for others to serve and sacrifice are cowards. It is simple. He or she who chooses to start a war should pay for it with their own money and their own lives while the rest of us get on with living and raising the next generations without war.

The only way to honor our war dead, and express concern for our Veterans, is to destroy the war machine that has devoured them. Then, and only then, can we save the children of the future from the sacrifices demanded by the gods of war.

There is something inherently wrong with cultures that feast upon dead youth to enhance or preserve their ways of life.
............Kitchen Window Woman...........