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Monday, May 30, 2005

Memorial Day, 2005

Update: Strategy Revolutions on Memorial Day, thinking about the difference between those we remember on Memorial day and "those timid souls we don't celebrate."
Lancelot Finn broods. He wishes he could be drafted. The womenfolk won't let him join. His wife is threatening to divorce him if he signs up.
Powerline memorializes one face of our collective losses.
Hispanic Pundit quotes an ME professor:
To venture into the Arab world, as I did recently over four weeks in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, is to travel into Bush Country. I was to encounter people from practically all Arab lands, to listen in on a great debate about the possibility of freedom and liberty. I met Lebanese giddy with the Cedar Revolution that liberated their country from the Syrian prison that had seemed an unalterable curse. They were under no illusions about the change that had come their way. They knew that this new history was the gift of an American president who had put the Syrian rulers on notice."
It's all true except that "this new history" is a gift from the men and women in our armed forces.
End Update


We remember them. Most of us, anyway. Freedom is hardly free. Generation after generation, the best of us have defended it. They still do. Barking Moonbat's tribute:
The Civil War
World War I (The Great War)
World War II
Korea
Vietnam
President's addresses marking Memorial Day:

From President Bush's remarks at Arlington last year:
And the war on terror we're fighting today has brought great costs of its own. Since the hour this nation was attacked, we have seen the character of the men and women who wear our country's uniform. In places like Kabul and Kandahar, in Mosul and Baghdad, we have seen their decency and their brave spirit. Because of their fierce courage, America is safer, two terror regimes are gone forever, and more than 50 million souls now live in freedom.
A heroic achievement, but not an easy one, and not one without its terrible costs:
And this is the loss to our nation. Markers on these hills record the names of more than 280,000 men and women. Each was once or still is the most important person in someone's life. With each loss in war, the world changed forever for the family and friends left behind. Each loss left others to go on, counting the years of separation, and living in the hope of reunion.

Although the burden of grief can become easier to bear, always there is the memory of another time, and the feeling of sadness over an unfinished life. Yet, the completeness of a life is not measured in length only. It is measured in the deeds and commitments that give a life its purpose. And the commitment of these lives was clear to all: They defended our nation, they liberated the oppressed, they served the cause of peace. And all Americans who have known the loss and sadness of war, whether recently or long ago, can know this: The person they love and missed is honored and remembered by the United States of America.
And, only in America, a cross put up as a WWI memorial by a band of veterans in 1934 has come under attack after the land it was on was annexed as federal lands. A park ranger decided that seeing the cross was offensive and sued. So far the courts have ruled in his favor. Congress tried to swap out the land on which the cross resided, but that was struck down as well on April 8th of this year, on the grounds that the land was being transferred with the provision that it must be maintained as a war memorial. This, the court found, made it an illegal establishment of religion.

Christopher Levenick wonders if Arlington will be next:
If Buono v. Norton stands, the distance between the cross at Sunrise Rock and the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery will have effectively disappeared. It is only a matter of time until someone visits that field of heroes and takes offense at all the religious symbols inscribed in marble. Then the courts will have a hard time devising a principle by which those thousands of crosses on federal land are not as unconstitutional as the one in the desert.

Undoing the unholy mess the courts have made of the Establishment Clause will be the work of many years. In the meantime, Congress should at least deter those who would rather destroy veterans' memorials than allow them any religious symbols whatsoever.
Free Iraqi has been posting on his suspicions about the Spirit of America organization - he feels that it is not honest in its dealings. In his latest post on the subject Ali wrote in part:
I have great hope and faith in both my people and the American people and will always be grateful for the Americans, and how can I not be when they have made my greatest dream come true! How can I not be grateful when I owe them every bit of freedom and happiness I'm enjoying now! How can I be not be grateful when now and thanks to their sacrifices I can look for a better future for me and my future kids! You know, at Saddam's days I had had decided that I should never ever have kids in such an environment; never to bring more slaves to this world who would find themselves forced to cheer "Papa Saddam" everyday and everywhere they go. I've always asked myself, "How could I face my kids when they grow up to see the disgrace their parents are living in?" Now I can have kids knowing I can and will honor them and that then they would honor me and most importantly themselves as well.
That's a legacy in Iraq, from someone who is not afraid to criticize what he sees as being wrong. Free speech and honor; that is what America has given him. He can have children because he can respect himself and his children will be able to respect him. He can have children that will be born into the uncertainties of freedom - uncertainties which Ali believes are infinitely better than the certainties of tyranny.

We should heed Ali's words. If we don't honor our fallen then we will lose the ability to honor ourselves. If we don't count the cost we won't understand our wealth. Facing the bitter reality of these lost lives is the price we pay for fully enjoying the gifts they have given us. All that we have we owe to them. All our future we owe to them.

We should remember the price paid for our freedom on this day, and resolve to use our freedom wisely.


Comments:
I read this post earlier- and admittedly, could not decide on an appropriate comment.

I still cannot get past the notion that Arlington might be under the gun for it's religious symbols.

In reality, I hope the ACLU does attempt to take on Arlington National Cemetary. It is a fitting place for them to meet the wrath and fury of our nations values.
 
I don't think they will. I think they will say that because multiple symbols are allowed it is different.

I think of the Black Hills and their significance for some Native Americans and shake my head. I think of the giant Buddhas carved on the mountains in Afghanistan that the Taliban tried to blow up and shake my head. The memorial cross in question is not just a religious symbol, but also a cultural one, and it preexisted the government's involvement. The government didn't set it up - they just annexed the lands on which it was. This is both petty and illogical tyranny.

If a government annexes land on which there is an old church, should it knock it down? I don't think the current status quo will last much longer. The cracks in the logic and the ideas are showing.

It is time to restrict the range of the federal judiciary by amending the US constitution. We must do so very carefully, however.
 
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