MEMORIALIZING WAR

Our combined Greater Bunswick PeaceWorks and Veterans for Peace members were in the local Memorial Day parade today.  Out of 48 entrees in the parade they once again put us near the end at the 42nd slot.

We've renamed our Maine Veterans for Peace chapter after Tom Sturtevant and his daughter carried one side of our VFP banner today.  He would have been very proud of her as he never missed being in the parade until his unexpected passing last winter.  Tom is terribly missed by all of us.

During the course of the parade, that begins in the town of Topsham and passes through Brunswick, I saw four people turn their backs on us.  One woman in this small group yelled right at me, "If it wasn't for those who died you wouldn't be able to walk."  It's really quite a mistake to believe that our soldiers die so that we can hit the streets back at home.  In fact during all my years as an activist I've never seen any military people come to our aid when cops and local governments have tried to limit our ability to publicly protest.  It has been the movement lawyers and activists themselves who have often been beaten and gone to jail that keep our freedoms of speech and assembly alive.

Most of the parade is a bunch of feel good nationalistic hoo-hah.  Memorializing war does nothing but keep the support for wars going.  It's fiction that they are honoring the troops.  I saw yesterday in the local paper that 50% of the soldiers coming back from current wars are filing disability claims but there is not enough money in the federal budget to support them.  Once they are finished with active duty they are largely forgotten.  Note the epidemic of suicides today with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.  Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11% of the general adult population.

The most touching moment this morning was after the parade was over and we were making our way back to our cars.  A young woman stopped me and said, "Thank you so much for doing this today.  My husband has just been deployed for 15 months."

Like most of those with family members in the military today this woman just wants her husband to come home - the sooner the better. For most GI's it's just a job.  The patriotic jive has become increasingly meaningless to growing numbers of troops and the public.