Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A different sort of Veterans Day

Every previous Veterans Day post here on Peace Tree Farm (2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003) was written in the continuing context of George W. Bush’s unconscionable and disastrous destruction of Iraq.  While that horror continues—dozens dead yesterday, more today—the nation’s orientation is now different.

The election of Barack Obama won’t immediately end the insanity that was the Iraq invasion.  More Iraqis, and more Americans, will die in that nation that has been destroyed in our name.  But the orientation of the American activities will undoubtedly shift from Bushian plunder and destruction to efforts at disentanglement and reconciliation.  It will be a difficult and dangerous task, but it’s a long overdue change.  We can never undo the awfulness that Bush caused this nation to inflict on the people of Iraq, but we can, at the very least, put an end to it.

I write on this Veterans Day as a Draft Board member.  The results of last week’s election probably make it less likely that I’ll ever have to perform such duties.  If unforeseen circumstances do somehow take us in that direction, however, I will always be fully aware that those responsibilities lead directly to this day.  What the Draft Board does, what the Selective Service System does, would convert young American men and women in to veterans of the armed services. 

That is, those who aren’t honored and remembered on Memorial Day.