Memorial Day

So, Memorial Day came and went. Good time, good friends, even good weather.

I'd go into it, but most of you were there.

Then there's today. Just another day to drag my kids to the place where I pay others to look after them, so I can try to earn enough to keep paying for child care.

I do the same route, day in, day out. Aside from traffic patterns not much changes.

This morning - something was different.

Rounding a corner I see the same backdrop, with a different foreground. In the grass of a long park that flanks the road is a war memorial.

I've read about them, seen the pictures - first time I actually saw it in the real. Hundreds upon hundreds of small white monuments lined up in the morning sun.

They are arranged like a timeline, and at irregular intervals a larger sign announces Iraq 2003 Iraq 2004, Afghanistan 2003, Afghanistan 2004.

And it just keeps going on. Year after year after year.

I've been to the Wall, to Arlington, Punchbowl - but the feeling was different. Seeing that number the nightly news treats like a sports score turned into a tangible presence is very uncomfortable. These dead would fill a cemetery - and not a small one.

The monument is political - filled with hopeful statements about how 'You can stop this.' No doubt most of those memorialized in it believed fully in what they were doing - but the mistakes of their leaders makes monuments like this one feel like a barely muted accusation.

Somehow the dead of other wars seem validated, the Wall at least symbolizes a lesson we should have learned.

Obviously we haven't.

Late edit:

Media Bloodhound makes a finer, and better point.