Today is
Veteran's Day in the United States -- a day when we stop to consider the
sacrifices of our military veterans, and most especially those who served in
war, live or dead.
I have
family in the military (one currently in the Army, another in the Army National
Guard), both of whom served as MPs in Baghdad.
I have a friend who is a veteran of Afghanistan and the Balkan war, and
is still a recruiter in the Army. And I
have a number of family members, living and dead, who served our country, including in battle. I take their service very seriously. They fought and risked their lives to serve
the interests of our country and allow us the luxury of the lives that we live
today.
Veteran's Day coincides
with Armistice Day (also known as Remembrance Day) which marks the signing of
the armistice that ended World War I, and end of one of modern history's worst nightmares. May we never experience another like it.
"In Flanders Fields" -- A poem written in
1915 by Colonel John McCrae in honor of his friend who had fallen early that
year in The Second Battle of Ypres:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
And yet, the
killing continues in the streets and homes of America, in the form of
never-ending gun violence. 53,402
American servicemen died in WWI. But
here in America, that many citizens die from gun violence every 20 months.
Last
Memorial Day, I
posted a blog post where I showed that more citizens die every year in
America than American soldiers who died in any year of any war since WWII. Go to that link and see the shocking
statistics.
Yes, WWI was
a nightmare on foreign battlefields, but we are living with a nightmare right
now on our streets.
The people I
know and love, live and dead, who served in foreign wars, did what they did in
order to preserve peace at home. But we
don't have peace at home. Instead we
have 100,000 shootings a year, a gun culture that allows 40% of gun sales to go
without a background check, and streets in some areas so violent that people
don't let their kids play outside. There can be no armistice without sensible reform. There are no poppies where our children are gunned down.
It's time to
change our culture of violence. It's
time to demand a plan
to reduce the shootings. It's time to
make a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.
