Memorial Day

At least this once was. The Feds removed Veterans Day from the list of "all y'all hit the road holidays" in 1978, they should do the same for Memorial Day.

One of the things that has bothered me over the years is the sanitized version we get of war. Part of that is due to the squeamishness of the military itself, who fears that if we were to know the true cost of the butcher's bill, we might be less inclined to support wars. That's not just our military, most of them have been that way. The military was blindsided by photography in the Civil War and by television in the Vietnam War, and they are determined that the proles at home not know the truth.

Here is the truth: War is a bloody, messy business. Men don't just take a convenient shot to the head or heart and die. Shot, shells and splinters do a horrific amount of damage to the human body.

Here is an account of what it was like to stand at the guns of a warship in the War of 1812. The writer was serving aboard the HMS Macedonian during her battle with the USS United States. (H/T)

Myself, I was fortunate. My war was a cold one. The injuries I saw were akin to industrial accidents: Burns, broken bones and the like. Knew one sailor who was suffering from what is now called PTSD: He had been sent ashore in Lebanon to provide technical assistance to the Marines with some problem, he was in the Marine barracks that was blown up. I knew another sailor who had been on the USS Belknap when she collided with the USS John F. Kennedy: He subsequently had to be sedated whenever the ship he was on operated close to (or UNREPed from) an aircraft carrier. Before my time, but sixteen soldiers were killed and over two dozen wounded when an Army artillery shell was accidentally fired into an Army bivouac area in 1960.

Men and women have served this county, in both wartime and peacetime, and have been killed in both.

Today is the day that they should be remembered.