War is nothing to celebrate, glorify

Published 2:36 pm Wednesday, May 30, 2012

As a Vietnam veteran, I am feeling kind of kidnapped by the arm-chair commandos that annually try to turn this memorial time of mourning of our military slain into a John Wayne guts and glory celebration of the splendor of war. It wasn’t splendid. It was ugly, bloody, deadly, terrifying, demoralizing, and it damaged good human beings in ways that will never be made right.

At the behest of these hawks, those of us who came out of those days dedicated to the idea that the dealing of death should come with much greater reluctance and called ourselves Veterans for Peace are reviled as cowards and traitors. In a civilized world, leaping into large-scale slaughter as the course of choice in adversity is not courage. It is the bilious outburst of lesser creatures and unworthy of us.

Mourning should not look so perilously close to celebration. No flag should fly at the top of its mast. No cheer should be heard. No beer and barbecue.

If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, that vigilance must not be shooting at anything that moves or worries us. We are homosapiens of the 21st century. We are arguably the most intelligent species in this sector of the universe. Surely we can manage it without wiping out half of it and disgracing the rest.

We can be good enough to reserve our pride for in the world we build — not for what, in failing, we destroy.

Harold R. Pettus

Everett