||| FROM SHARON ABREU |||
Each year our local school district holds a Veterans Day celebration. It concerns me that our schools continue to celebrate those who fought in wars without acknowledging the tremendous damage done to the people – mostly innocent civilians – where these wars occur – the damage done to their bodies, families, homes, communities, livelihoods, water supplies, energy infrastructure, and every aspect of their lives. We don’t see it, and we need to see it. Our students need to know this or we are denying them a critical piece of their education to be engaged citizens.
It’s also extremely important that people, especially students, who are inheriting a polluted planet with serious impacts of global warming, understand the huge environmental impact of U.S. military activity, not the least of which is a huge carbon footprint – or as Veterans for Peace says it “carbon bootprint”. (See https://www.
There is much information available online about all of this, from PFAS poisoning water on Whidbey Island, to Native Americans dying in cancer clusters in Alaska, to CO2 emissions to toxins absorbed by high school students in JROTC programs.
I would be happy to do a presentation on this for our schools or to set up a series of presentations by people I highly recommend who have been researching and presenting on these subjects for years.
I acknowledge that it’s also important for our students to know how many U.S. veterans return to the U.S. missing limbs, cognitive abilities, suffering from PTSD, and how many commit suicide.
Here in the 21st century, there is a huge opportunity to transition away from our country’s dependence on military and defense industry jobs (and arms sales to countries that do not share our democratic values) to much-needed life-affirming jobs which create value for everyone, including apprenticeships for students not planning on attending college.
I highly recommend that we return to celebrating Armistice Day, the holiday originally celebrated on November 11 – a solemn day to celebrate peace and an end to wars, most of which at least have been unnecessary, illegal and immoral.
Thank you to our local Veterans and all those and their families who have sacrificed so that this opinion piece could be published.
Thank you Justin. As a retired Marine I could not b have said it better!!
Justin- Well said Sir, well said.
John- Thank you for your service!
The best way to actually honor all war veterans is to help insure that their sacrifices were not made in vain and that PEACE is our national goal, not a permanent state of war. President Eisenhower, in early 1961, as he prepared for the peaceful transition of office to his elected successor (John Kennedy), warned us of the dangers of the military/industrial complex:
“Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
[Eisenhower’s speech in full can be found at: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp%5D
I support Sharon’s view that Armistice Day (as it was originally called) is preferable to the appearance of glorifying organized violence (no matter how necessary it might have been). Veterans For Peace continues to advocate for Reclaiming Armistice Day: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/armistice-day
In response to Justin Paulsen’s comment, I believe you’re referring to my freedom to have this opinion expressed and published. Yes, indeed, I appreciate that. The problem I see in our country is that some of us have more freedom than others, and too many of us want our freedoms without taking responsibility for them. That weighs on my conscience. Our government’s response to the 9/11 attacks, has greatly reduced our freedoms and initiated wars that never should have happened. I continue to say what I said when the drumbeats for war were getting louder in 2001, 2002 and 2003: “Support our troops – bring them home now”. Have you seen the Afghanistan Papers? Can we be more discerning and less militant going forward? Those wars were waged at great cost to us as a country and to so many people around the world who were and are innocent victims. Freedom without responsibility, and freedom without definition of what this highly emotionally-charged word means, are very damaging. I’m curious if it’s possible for you to acknowledge any of the truth, painful as it is, in what I wrote in my LTE, rather than just pushing back against it as a knee-jerk reaction.
Sharon,
There was no knee jerk reaction.
I am reminded daily of the relative peace that we live in as I look upon the Purple Heart given to my grandfather for his service in WW2. It is prominently displayed in our home with the flag bestowed upon my family, recognizing his combat service in battling against some of the most oppressive regimes in our planets modern history.
It is possible to simultaneously support a less aggressive military approach while at the same time also recognizing the necessary sacrifices of those who have served our country. This on-line exchange is only possible through those sacrifices.
I welcome any instruction at our schools which offers our students an opportunity to focus on peaceful solutions to our world conflicts, but that need not exist at the exclusion of the recognition of the sacrifices of our Veterans.