If I might give a little rant here...
I have a problem with memorial day. First time after coming back from deployment, I get drowned in an ocean of "thank you for your sacrifice" and "boy it's great that you fought for my freedom" And i'm nothing but confused because neither rings true with me. Then I look around and see veterans from other wars (was in the VFW for a bit) who take the praises to hart and return a "No problem". Now I come to find out that they HELD the same notion that I hold. But they couldn't find out why so they go along with the current and they are happy.
The thing is that I never fought for your freedom. Yeah I rolled around a desert with a gun. But none of that ever positively affected the liberty of anyone stateside. If I mention anything significant that happened, all I get a wide eye'd "Oh" or "Uhm Ok.." As if i'm narrating something a foreign language. See there's no moment where the listener will say: "Oh that's where I got the liberty to eat my root beer floats!" My theory is that i'm not some special case. The majority of veterans recognized the same thing when they came back.
But they as do I feel there should be a remembrance of the ugly thing that happened. That my NCO and friends death should not be a dirty secret and hidden. Nor whitewashed and glorified in some cultist sacrificial way. I believe memorial day should be a national day of shame, No spangled banner cupcakes but A long list of the husbandless spouses and fatherless children, families with no progeny to remember them once they pass into the ether. It comes down to that there is a debt clock to show the cost of war in dollars but that does not display the human cost which is difficult to gauge. This is why there appear to be two types of veterans in the US. The bedazzled cunt cap, matching group vest wearing gentlemen you see at old country buffet enjoying their free veterans meal. And the grouchy gun toting to much OD green wearing sulk's like me.
