Remembering Memorial Day

I've never been extremely pro-military. To be honest, I spent most of my life strongly anti-military. Even now, I can't say I want to shoot at anyone or would encourage my sons to shoot at anyone, but I am learning to disassociate the human beings in the armed services from the politicians who want bombs and wars.

False dichotomy in some ways, but when someone enlists, they are ready to fight and die for the country. The politicians are supposed to point them at battles that actually help our country - and the World, oh yeah, other people might have rights, too - and not things that are the pet projects of people who will lie to get what they want and then refuse to understand that they have completely f***ed up and have killed millions of civilians and destabilized the Middle East yet again.

My heart goes out to the men and women who have fought for our country and to the families of those who have fought and died - in the war in Iraq and in so many wars, battles, skirmishes, and friendly fire incidents.

My friends in high school in the Reagan era were mostly drama club. We were called fags (as most drama nerds seem to be), but we were also commie hippies. Obviously. In a small-ish college town with a large-ish university in an otherwise mostly rural area of Ohio, you get a mix that really accentuates the divide between liberal vs conservative. To put it mildly.

Once one of my sisters joined the Navy (though she got pregnant and dropped out. Yes. Really.) and later another joined the Army and didn't drop out, I had a lot of rethinking to do about what military means.

Up to that point, I tried not to think too much about my career Navy uncle and his sons who enlisted. DH did his mandatory year of service in France (stationed in Germany, messing with computers). My dad served his time when he was drafted after college back in 1954 or so. He got out early to go to grad school, after spending 18 months typing and playing ping-pong in Kansas. None of my grandparents fought in WWII (maternal grandfather was narcoleptic, paternal... not sure why not, though my wild guess would be that he was already going deaf and/or was older than most and was the sole breadwinner for his family). It doesn't sound like their grandparents were in WWI either, though maybe I missed that part of the family history.

Am I rambling again?

I would like to honor those who have fought and who are fighting for our country, even when our country doesn't know what to fight for. That's what I want to say.