Remembrance Day is always conflicted for me.
I do believe that all those soldiers who died or were seriously injured physically and otherwise ought to be remembered and honoured. And I have no doubt at all that serious acts of bravery and heroism were rampant on battlefields. But I also believe that those soldiers were co-opted into battles that ought not to have been fought in the first place. Their deaths were all the more horrific for being the result of very nasty propaganda and distortions of truth.
Not to mention the helpless civilians on whose home turfs those battles were fought. We modern North Americans have not experienced any of that, we have very little idea of what a war is really like because for us, it is always 'over there'. We can look to refugees from modern battlefield states to get some idea of what it is really like, but rarely if ever do we have days of commemoration for such refugees.
The USA is in a bit of a tough position. Called on to be the Policeman of the World, to go into countries in the midst of war to arbitrate or enforce or whatever, and also vilified for going in where they are not wanted at all or picking sides based on their own economic self-interest. If Trump has done anything positive on the world stage it has been withdrawing American troops from battlefield countries.
I heard on the news yesterday that Canada is complicit in recent civilian deaths in a central Asian battlefield because we supplied armament to fighters. We like to think of ourselves as Peacemakers, all the while profiting from arms sales.
These are the things we should be remembering but not honouring.
2 comments:
I'm with you on this. I'm surrounded by the flagwavers around this time. Any modicum of research on the war would reveal the horrifying truths of it, the Big Boys behind the scenes, playing it like a chessboard, gleaning fortunes in the military industrial complex.
I feel only pity for these frightened boys, going off for the big "adventure" like a comic book hero, then facing the horrific reality of brutal death and rats in the trenches and civilians been blown to bits. With the barbaric "reward" of a raped woman periodically. The whole picture of war is never presented. Just the gloating "they gave us our freedoms!". But think of the cost.
XO
WWW
You said it all :)
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