My Vetrans Day/Remembrance Day Recognition

[youngred]

It was a very cold and cloudy day today in Washington DC. My Classes ended at 4:30ish and I decided I needed to remember all those wonderful people who have sacrificed their time, their effort and in some cases their lives for me to live in a (well what was a) free country.

I walked down to the mall and first went to the Korean War Memorial. I walked the circle and thought those poor men and women, their faces haggard. For those who don't know it it is several sttues of soldiers and the way it is set up is that you advance around it so that it seems as though the statues are advancing and then retreating, just as the war progressed. I wondered at the sacrifice these men and women put forth in a war so largely forgotten by msot of their nation.

I then walked down through the drained reflecting pool to the uncompleted WWII memorial. While I think its ugly and misplaced I looked at the big white stone columns and the construction going on and thought what must it have been like for these people to put their lives on hold for three years and slog their way through tropical jungles, facing walls of metal and through the most historic lands of Europe in cold and heat. I thought could I do that? Would I survive the way those people did? I found chillingly that I don't think i could, and my already immense respect and awe at the actions of these brave men and women grew tenfold.

Then to the last stop...Vietnam. I was already tearing as the obsidian wall came into view. I ran my fingers across those names...all those names. Each one a son, a friend, a brother, a husband, a father, they had christmases and thanksgivings, first teeth, skinned knees and dreams, they had hopes and loves and pains, they fought for something, but 30 years later we as a nation can't decide what. I was crying in full force by the time I reached the end. A woman looked over at my tears and said did you know someone who died? I said no, the war was over 10 years before I was born, but all those lost lives touch me so much, and the thought of losing more everyday for another war we don't know the cause of is killing me. She said "I know" and wandered off.

Why do we have more soldiers fighting and dying this day? TO what purpose? The security of America? Never. There was no threat from Iraq. The humanitarian/democracy issue? Well why didn't you pitch that originally? Why didn't you do something that would have helped the people of Iraq (like removing sanctions and supporting opposition instead of looking on while "he gassed his own people" and doing nothing)

Why are they there?

Why are more young Americans losing limbs

Why are more young Americans dying

Why are more American families losing loved ones

Why are more American lives being shattered?

Why are you doing this George Bush?

Why?

Remember these brave people today and every day. They fight for something they don't know for the aggrandizement of the oligarchy of this nation. They fight under our flag for the desires of the few.

Please end this war.

No more deaths

No more names

No more war memorials

Please.

I cry for peace tonight

[Swede]

1. Amen youngred

[JohnKleeb]

2. Zack that was great dude

I would have loved to been in DC today really but school called :( but at 11:11 I remained silent and reflected.

[sweettater]

3. Thank you for your reflections

I can only hope your hand touched my brother's name on the Vietnam Memorial. :hug:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. A great addition to the wall... the memorial to women in

VietNam. Lots of people miss it. Very dramatic at night.

[piece sine]

4. next time

you take that remarkable, life-affirming walk among the monuments, consider ending at the Jefferson memorial. His words on the walls of the rotunda will put our soldiers' deaths in context. And then go and sit on the white marble steps and look out at the Tidal Basin; it's healing.

The long green ceremonial stretches of Washington gives us a rare opportunity to look into the soul of this country, but we must first be open to it's magic, like you were today.

[youngred]

8. That is a good point

I will have to that next time I do the walk. I usually go straight down the mall (well around the stupid walll around the washington monument), from the Lincoln to the Capitol and think and reflect on the trememndous good and evil this country can do. i should walk over to Jefferson and FDR more.

[piece sine]

10. the FDR memorial

also brings tears to my eyes...the water element at the final outdoor room representing the rush of freedom FDR brought us.

How far into the abyss since then.

[Brucey]

5. Nice thoughts...

when will the US bullying end?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. Nicely worded... for those who have not seen it... here is the

Korean Conflict memorial, at least the statuary part of it..



It is very moving.

[UrbScotty]

9. Amen.

Nice going.

[Zomby Woof]

11. thanks youngred

You have an old soul for a young man, and may you never lose your empathy for the human condition.