A moment of your time please.

It started out as Decoration day. On May 1, 1865 freed slaves in Charleston SC decorated the graves of union soldiers ( apparently they were too ignorant to understand that the civil war was all about "states rights". Sarcasm, yup. Up yours Ron Paul. Up yours heritage foundation. Up yours anyone that thinks the stars and bars isn't a repulsive symbol of evil). Over time it came to include all Americans killed in war. So at 3 PM today, the traditional moment of remembrance,  please take a moment from your softball game, or your burger, or your party and say a prayer to your god for those snuffed out before their time.

Think too on why they died. For the last 10 years we have been involved in 2 wars that have cost over  100,000 people (I am using the conservative, meaning "low" number here as apposed to the conservative, meaning "presented by the psycho spin doctors of the right wing" number. A number that is still almost 50,000)  their lives. They died not because an army was ready to invade us, but because 19 evil crazy men attacked us with knives. They died because we were afraid. They died because the neocons wanted to do a social experiment in the mid-east. They died because we are addicted to cheap oil. They died because we elected a buffoon as a president. They died because we as a people didn't take a moment and ask "Do they have to die?" What they didn't die for was a good reason. What they didn't die for was an clear and present danger. What they didn't die for was something that any god worshipped in this country would approve. They didn't die for justice, or a better world, or freedom. They just died.

When we honor those that made the ultimate sacrifice maybe we should take a brief second from our narcissistic, self absorbed, consumer driven lives and ask if we even had the right to make that request. Mostly and profoundly no. If I'm ruining your horseshoes game, or your cookout, or your extra shopping day, good. Sending people off to die, destroying 2 countries, should never be easy.

They might have been heros, they might have been unlucky, they might have been honorable, they might have gloried in fighting,  hey might have joined because a judge told them they had to, but they weren't an abstract and the weren't just a name carved on a wall. They were husbands and wives, sons and daughters.  They were people endowed by their creator to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So the next time some jackass like George Bush or Barrack Obama tells you that we have to go some place and blow the joint up look around your kids softball game, or your church, or your work place and ask how many of the people you see are worth expending on this latest call to arms. Tim in accounting just graduated collage and his wife has a baby on the way. Sue in shipping is getting married next week. Bob from sales is part of the national guard. Remember, Bush doesn't have to go, neither does Barrack, but your neighbor's kid, or maybe your neighbor, does. You still want to just follow the crowd?

We're not going to get rid of war anytime soon, but the day will come quicker if we at least stop thinking war is a good idea.

"There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it."

Henry Ellis