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Memorial Day 2013
he·ro - [heer-oh] (n) plural he·roes; A person who risks their life limb or career for a cause greater than themselves.
One does not have to die in order to be a hero. It’s a statistical risk, not a certainty, that you will die, if you charge that machine gun or dash into danger to save others. But you make a conscious decision to do it (one you might not make if you had more time to think about it. Doesn’t matter, you’re still a hero.)
One does not become a hero just because they put on a uniform. While a certain risk is involved in all military service, it’s minimal and those who enlist don’t do it for the chance to risk their lives for others €" they do it for the money, for the job security, for a career, for skills they can learn, for future benefits, etc. Nothing wrong with any of that, but it doesn’t make them a hero any more than if they go to work for Jack-in-the-Box.
Nor does it make you a hero to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just because you are walking across the street and a couple of raghead jihadists run you down and decapitate you, that does not make you a hero. It makes you a victim of terrorists (who should be shot, after a speedy trial of about 15 minutes, with bullets smeared with pig fat).
Being killed in war does not make you a hero. It makes you a casualty. Not to take away from the pathos, but when we label every casualty a hero, or worse, when we label every man and woman in uniform a hero, we cause the word to lose its meaning.
Memorial Day is to remember those who have served in uniform, and particularly those who paid with their lives. But what say we just drop the false hero-worship?
Of more concern to all of us should be the walking wounded (and some of them are not walking, obviously). More people are wounded, for life, than are killed. They suffer for the rest of their lives, physically, and we should respect that. We should give them job preferences. We should appreciate that they will pay every remaining day of their lives for a job which delivered far fewer benefits than were promised when they signed up.
And of even more concern to all of us should be those who are emotionally and psychologically wounded. Few of them will ever completely recover.
We still have plenty of Korean War veterans with us who went through a frozen hell, in an unconstitutional war, not to defend our freedoms, but to promote the role of the United Nations and the New World Order.
We have even more Vietnam War veterans with us, who went through a sweltering hell, in an unconstitutional war, not to defend our freedoms, but to promote the role of the United Nations and the New World Order.
We now have a huge population of Gulf War veterans, Iraqi War veterans, and Afghani War veterans, who went through a parched hell, not to defend our freedoms, but to promote the role of the United Nations and the New World Order
Neither the physically damaged, nor the mentally damaged, are really heroes, because they didn’t ask for this. But they definitely are victims, most of them living daily in misery and pain as part of their reward for enlisting in the military.
Not only is war “hell”, it is a racket, as Marine Corps General Smedley so aptly called it.
How strange it is that so many Americans will wave the flag and worship at the feet of Mars, the God of War, stirring the blood of our young men (and now women) to “go to glory” with the hoopla of military music and parades and flags waving and preachers exhorting their parishioners to go off and kill the enemy.
And yet, how many of those same “patriotic Americans” will give no thought to the illegal and unconstitutional nature of the war of the decade? How can we care less for the Constitution than for the nation? Apparently it’s not very difficult to do.
And therein lies the problem. Even though every soldier, and every politician, takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, it’s promptly forgotten, much like we treat marriage vows these days. Oaths have become a legal nicety, while we continue to pursue what we want. This nullifies both the marriage vow and the Oath of Allegiance.
It’s bad enough to send young men and women into battle in defense of their nation. But to send them into no-win wars is treasonous.
And to send Americans to fight, bleed and die in order impose a globalist agenda on nations and on people who did not attack us in the first place, is also treasonous. Has our policy become Orwell’s “perpetual war for perpetual peace”?
Those who would vote to expand war as policy in order to get re-elected, are traitors. This will not change until we start electing statesmen who are committed to enforcing the enumerated powers of the Constitution, and defunding every unconstitutional agency and program on the books. It is not the Veteran’s duty alone, it is the duty of the Voter to defend our freedoms (and try to get them back).
If the Constitution no longer matters,
then America no longer matters.
by Daniel New
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