Pro Patria...

Today being Memorial Day (known in my youth as Decoration Day, because of the decorating of veterans' graves with tiny flags), I just thought I would stop to rip a respectful salute in the direction of those veterans.

Beginning with my late father, who was a hero who spent a year in a Nazi prison camp toward the end of WWII. All my male relatives---grandfathers, uncles, great-grandfathers, great-uncles, quite a few cousins---were vets, and some of my best friends are, too, like firedrake_mor.

So I never had any real problem with the warrior culture, and even at my most protest-y anti-Vietnam intensest I never once blamed the grunts who were my contemporaries, guys I went to school with, guys I dated. I only and forever and bitterly blamed the evil politicians who had sent them there in the first place. And I still do. THOSE are the ones I'd spit on, not the guys who served their bloody policies.

I have a fond memory of attending Mass before a Memorial Day parade one year, I must have been twelve or so, wearing my Girl Scout uniform, since I was going to march with my troop as a flag-carrier after church. And the church was full of friends, also in Girl Scout and Boy Scout uniforms...it was a moving moment looking around after Mass and seeing some of them lighting candles for military family members before we all moved out to do our parading.

So honor to those who serve their country in uniform, and not forgetting those who also serve by calling that country to account for its sins and wrongs. It's all needed.