Today is a day to remember and honor those who gave their lives and suffered for the sake of our nation. Young men and women enlist in the military to serve their country, and we owe them our gratitude.
We honor their sacrifice but not war itself. War represents a failure of reason, a failure of negotiations. In the face of aggression, war becomes necessary to preserve life and liberty. In the face of greedy and power-hungry fascists like Hitler and Putin, democracies go to war to avoid being conquered and subdued by them.
We have fought just wars, and we have fought unjust wars. It’s usually easier to know which is which when it’s over. Hindsight is 20/20 vision.
In honoring those who fought for our country, we honor them, not war.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.
Go to the parades, fly the flag of our nation (not the flag of insurrectionists), read the Constitution and its amendments. Do your part as a citizen to strengthen our democracy and protect our freedoms in your community, your city, your state, and our nation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
thank you, Diane for this post.
Due to the recent uptick in tribal warfare, travel is not recommended to Papua New Guinea and the United States.
Outstanding post, Diane.
I believe in the concept of just war, but as with every human activity just wars come with tradeoffs. Among the most just wars was the destruction of Nazi Germany in WWII. But recall the opening scene of the movie “Saving Private Ryan”, praised by veterans of the D-Day invasion as reflecting the reality of Omaha Beach as well as any movie could do. Those young men participated in a noble cause, but so many of them died before they had any chance of living an adult life, building careers, falling in love, becoming fathers. We owe them our gratitude and we best honor their sacrifice by helping to make America live up to its ideals now and in the future.
Amen
War is an absolute human catastrophe from every possible aspect. Bodies torn to shreds, blood and gore everywhere. Viewing the Ukrainian troops loading and firing off those huge cannons, they must lose their hearing and have their brains scrambled from enduring the shock wave and the toxic chemical fumes from firing off the massive shells repeatedly.
Or one small view from the Russian front of WWII: the flattened corpse of a German soldier on the road of the Nazi quick retreat. The body of the fallen soldier had been run over repeatedly, the Nazis did not even have time to retrieve the fallen body of their fellow German.
Could you name one Just War fought by America? Don’t tell me it’s WW 2- America was segregated
If the Allies had not defeated the Nazis, Hitler would have conquered all of Europe and North Africa, probably more.
WW2 was a just war. I can’t say the same about WW1.
The Civil War? The slaves were freed but then trapped by Jim Crow laws.
The Revolutionary War? Maybe we would speak better English today if the colonists had lost.
Nazis were defeated by the Soviets. US joined the war late and Chomsky writes that after the fall of Paris there were beer parties in New York.
At the time of WW2 Germany was Nazi, Italy was Fascist, US was racist, UK and France were colonial countries. How is Nazism any worse than Racism or Colonialism. 3 – 5 Million of my people ( Bengalis) died of starvation because the food was taken for the British military. After the war the Europeans of course decided that the penalty for anti semitism has to be paid by Palestinians although anti semitism was a feature of Europe and not Middle East.
The U.S. entered the Second World War after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on the U.S.
The Nazis were defeated by the Allies, mainly Britain, the U.S., and the USSR. The other European nations were overrun by the Nazis.
More than 400,000 American service members died in that war.
You probably don’t know this, but the Soviets and Nazis signed an alliance in 1939, which lasted until June 1941 when the Nazi army invaded Russia. You don’t seem to know much about the USSR. Did you know that it had slave labor camps? Did you know that it was a dictatorship where all life was controlled by the Party? Did you know that the USSR subjugated satellite nations and controlled them? Have you ever heard of the Katyn Forest Massacre?
I’m sorry that your nation was ill-treated by the British. Nazism was far worse than racism or colonialism. Millions of people—not only Jews but priests, guns, people with disabilities, gays, and many other groups— were gassed to death and their bodies burned in crematoria.
The Zionist idea began in the late nineteenth century. Jews have always lived in parts of the land that is now Israel. There was no Palestinian state when Israel was created in 1948. Survivors of the European holocaust migrated to Israel. They could not return to the countries where their families had been massacred. A large portion of the population of Israel are Jews who were expelled from Arab countries. There were once thriving Jewish communities in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, and other Arab nations. Most were expelled and went to Israel.
The present government of Israel is the worst in its history.
I oppose the war. I oppose the settlements in the West Bank.
I hope for a Palestinian state and for peace in the Middle East.
you could make a pretty good argument that no war is good, but some war protects the possibility of better days ahead. If we had waited to confront Hitler until we felt pure at heart, he would have dominated Europe and we would have had to wait decades to see de-segregation.
Define “just war”
A necessary war, perhaps? In WWII, we were attacked by Japan and then a few days later Germany declared war on the US.
Earl Davis’ World War II lasted just a few minutes. He approached Omaha Beach in one of those big boats and waded off into the water with all the other soldiers. They were told that helping their wounded friends in the surf would probably mean their own demise and hurt the attack by losing more men.
A few feet from the beach, Earl took some shrapnel in his side and crumpled into a foot of water. Drowning, he felt a hand grab him and drag him the few feet to shore, turning him over on his wound. He came to later, clutching his gas alarm.
Earl’s eyes always glistened as he ended his story: “I never knew who saved my life….” His voice trailed off and he stared off a bit. Earl always had a glassy expression.
Regardless of the politics of the conflict, we must remember the fallen, the survivors and honor their sacrifice.
It was not a mystery that the Iraq War was an unjust war.
Wars based on lies are never just.
How War Ends
by Jack Burgess, Sp3, US Army, 894th Tank Battalion
…and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah
This is how war ends:
The guns stop everywhere.
Fifty-ton tanks roll to a stop,
war ships dock,
fighters and bombers come down from the sky,
and two moments of silence follow.
The war dead honored by the first,
the 2nd silence is for reflection,
for hearing frogs, and your own breath.
This is followed by a single voice,
then a murmur. Screwdrivers and crow bars
come out, and the green tanks are
dismantled, gas siphoned for school buses.
Troop ships sail home from a hundred shores,
so that husbands and wives can kiss unvirtually,
and children see the strong eyes of their fathers,
feel their love and their arms about them.
Uniforms become keepsakes and relics.
All flags are fine and flying.
Those in congresses clear their throats
apologetically and say, “What shall we do with
the leftover money?” Children with swollen bellies,
working as lobbyists, shout, “Food!” Others say,
“Let’s build a thousand new schools and parks.”
Lots of people hug and dance
and make love. Some cry.
The news is good at 6:00 o’clock.
More at 11:00.
Wonderful, Jack.
I want to add, after reading the US Constitution and understanding what it means, take the same sane oath that George Washington took as the first president of the United States and every president since.
Presidents are not the only ones that take an oath similar to the one George Washington took.
Everyone voted into Congress takes that oath. Everyone in the US military takes that oath. Everyone that works for the federal government takes that oath. Even the justices of the US Supreme Court take a similar oath.
Their loyalty is supposed to be to the US Constitution, not an individual, a song, or a flag, and not a traitor like Trump, who lied when he took that oath the first and hopefully last time.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Lloyd,
Trump did the job “to the best of his ability.” A very low bar.