Memorial Day 2111

    Memorial Day weekend has come and gone.  The lilacs at the end of the drive are in full bloom; the flowers have already faded on the apple and crab apple trees.  We spent the weekend working in the yard in between rain showers and Janette came over Monday for a cookout.  She brought her famous potato salad and a tomato/cuke salad, I grilled up some sirloin tip steaks Mom had bought and some corn on the cob.  We all overate and watched "Tangled," my new favorite movie.

While it rained, I rested up and watched old WWII movies on TV.  I love WWII history.  It was the last time things were really black and white for us Americans.  There were villains and good guys.  There was clearly a "right thing to do," thanks to Adolph Hitler and Pearl Harbor, and a whole generation--the one Bill Curtis called "The Greatest Generation"--did it without second thought.  Since then other generations of young kids have done their tours of duty, but the ground has been muddied since WWII.   The unholy mess of Korea, the horror of Vietnam, and now the Oil Wars.  These days the villains are mostly manufactured by unseen men in finely furnished conference rooms.  The good guys still do "the right thing" as it is presented to them, but within the ranks thinking men suffer and ask difficult questions. 

I read somewhere that "wars are declared by old men, but fought by young men."  To that truth I add that no matter which army "wins" in war, innocent civilians--mainly women and children--on both sides always lose.  What a sad waste.

Still, I salute the young American hero, who puts his life on the line in answer to a perceived threat to the country and people he loves, and I am profoundly grateful that hero still exists.  I just wish the old men could, for once, find a better way.