memorial day shenanigans have vets pissed

[Duelist925]

One day I may make it to the memorial and see my father's name. He was MIA so his name made it onto the wall. He actually survived the war, him and only one other guy in his platoon. He didn't know how, but his friend got him out and they wound up in CA. He died when I was 15 from complications from Agent Orange, which the government now admits to using.

I'm sorry for your loss, and I hope you can make it to the memorial some day.

[bex1218]

Its sad, I thanked a Vet the other night at work and he was telling me how he was in Vietnam (not even the frontlines) and could not take pride in being in the Navy (even with losing the war). Sad that they have to thank me for thanking them.

[HYHYBT]

I believe part of it is, not so much that the war was a loss per se, but that it was a long, stupid, pointless mess. And part, also, is the nature of the memorial: simply a list of names, carved in stone. Many, many people now living and able to go see it, whether they were in that war or not, knew some of those names as real people. It's hard to explain (and I only felt it secondhand watching others, because I'm of the wrong time and had no relatives that I know of in that particular war) but that can have a powerful effect on some people.

I don't know what the design of the WWII memorial is, but it's far too new. It should have been built around 1950; instead, it came along late enough that most of the people who knew the people who died in that war are either dead themselves or unable to make the trip. Around here, a lot of towns have memorials for the Civil War. Somebody keeps the grass trimmed and changes the flag when it starts to fade, but otherwise they're mostly ignored, because, though somebody who knew their genealogy and looked might find an ancestor listed, nobody living knew them.