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Today is the beginning of the holiday weekend–that official weekend of the BBQ season, that weekend in which the Indy 500 is run and people from all over cheer for their favorite driver/team, that weekend in which families visit the cemeteries to place wreathes on the graves of family members who have gone before them. But first it was the weekend used to pay homage to those who fought and died for the freedoms given to the people of this country.

In small towns across the country parades will march down main streets, bands will play, members of the VFW and American Legion will march and wave or ride and wave to those standing curbside with hands over hearts as  the high school band plays The Star Spangled Banner. There will be laughter, cheering, balloons and memories.

Toddlers will wave their tiny flags on a stick from their parent’s arms. Small children will race among the viewers or stand quietly beside the grown-ups, trying to discover why the parade is happening on this weekend. Teens will watch from the sidelines, some solemn for they have older siblings fighting overseas right now, or they know others who are in a war zone. Other teens understand that these men and women were parading for their great-grandfathers, grandfathers, uncles, or fathers.

Tears flow easily at these small cousins of big city celebrations. Perhaps it is because these citizens feel the loss of even one young person to war as a personal one. Maybe it is because they still remember the reason the holiday was created. Regardless of reason, this small town parade has significance to these citizens.

And in just over a month they will come together again for another parade. This one will commemorate the founding of this country and the reason why Memorial Day’s creation was allowed. The Fourth of July has also become a holiday of BBQ’s, picnics, swimming parties, and let’s not forget fireworks. Those fireworks symbolize the rocket’s red glare referenced in The Star Spangled Banner performed a month earlier during that Memorial Day parade in a small town in the USA.

And what are your plans for this weekend?

Claudsy

I found this at Boni's deployment blog--Breathe...breathe...hooah...hooah.
The CNMI is second (to American Samoa) in number of casualties per capita in the Iraq War. (Click on post title for link to full list.)

At San Vicente Church, they lit a candle for each person who died in 2007. Death happens, whether we're in the military or not. But for those who die in combat, or otherwise, far away from home, I feel especially sad. Our military persons who are killed in war are mostly young men and women--their lives a heavy price to pay for war.

I'm opposed to the war in Iraq. I think President Bush and America were wrong for starting it, and are wrong for continuing it. And we've made a mess that may take generations for healing and recovery. I would like to see individuals say no to war and refuse to participate in it.

But I sincerely hope and pray for each soldier or other military person who has made a different decision--who has enlisted, who is facing deployment, who is already there, or returned with battle scars (emotional or physical).

May you find peace in 2008. May you return safely to your family. May God bless you.

My sincere condolences to the Charfauros family of Rota on the death of their fallen soldier. TribuneReport

How many more dead must we have before we seek peace?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. (Matthew 5:9).

My condolences to Ray Quichocho and his wife on the death of their son/stepson, Victor Michael Fontanilla. I'm sorry he died in Iraq. I'm sorry that we Americans have funded war, rather than peace. I'm sorry that this soldier and others won't be coming home again to these beautiful, pacific, islands.

The sun shines here. The CNMI is intensely beautiful, with flame trees in brilliant reds, plumeria laden with fragrant blossoms, flourescent-pink bougainvilla climbing everywhere. And yet, our young people are attracted to the military life. I have trouble fathoming that choice.

The "glory" of war isn't much like war as depicted in the movies. We can see the real thing up close in images available with a click. Just go to You Tube and type Iraq. You'll find footage of what's really happening there. You can view events as "officially" reported by MNF-IRAQ.com.

Like this, taken in March 2007:



And this night raid, also in March 2007:



What strikes me about these skirmishes is the almost casual nature of some of the fighting. Standing around outside in the open, uncertain where shots are coming from, or stepping over bodies.

You can also see Iraq before America's invasion, what the Iraqi people see when they look at their country. Like this:



Or this, footage taken 2 weeks before America invaded:



Real life doesn't come with a soundtrack, so the music adds artifice, makes it seem perfectly peaceful, and we know it wasn't, but it looks pretty normal.

So what does it all mean? What are we, as Americans from a very peaceful island, supposed to think and do, for our country, for God? So many of our youth sign up with noble intentions. But I hope that those now contemplating joining the US military take a closer look and listen.

If you've missed this Iraqi-American rapper, you aren't confused enough yet about America's role in Iraq.


And if you stray from the "official" footage of the war in Iraq, the chaos of the situation, and what our soldiers are facing, becomes much more evident. Perhaps this video captures it best:



As for me, I'm still praying for peace.

In memory of the students who died recently at Blacksburg, Virginia, and all those young men and women who've died in the war in Iraq and elsewhere, and because it National Poetry Month (and I haven't posted any poems yet), I offer this poem of Edna St. Vincent Millay:

From "Memorial to D.C. (Vassar College, 1918)"

O, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,
Where now no more the music is,
With hands that wrote you little notes
I write you little elegies!

V --Elegy

Let them bury your big eyes
In the secret earth securely,
Your thin fingers, and your fair,
Soft, indefinite-colored hair--
All of these in some way, surely,
From the secret earth shall rise;
Not for these I sit and stare,
Broken and bereft completely:
Your young flesh that sat so neatly
On your little bones will sweetly
Blossom in the air.

But your voice...never the rushing
Of a river underground,
Not the rising of the wind
In the trees before the rain,
Not the woodcock's watery call,
Not the note the white-throat utters,
Not the feet of children pushing
Yellow leaves along the gutters
In the blue and bitter fall,
Shall content my musing mind
For the beauty of that sound
That in no new way at all
Ever will be heard again.

Sweetly through the sappy stalk
Of the vigorous weed,
Holding all it held before,
Cherished by the faithful sun,
On and on eternally
Shall your altered fluid run,
Bud and bloom and go to seed:
But your singing days are done;
And the music of your talk
Never shall the chemistry
Of the secret earth restore.

All your lovely words are spoken.
Once the ivory box is broken,
Beats the golden bird no more.

BBC banned the reading of Pakistani-British playwright Hanif Kureishi's story,
WeddingsAndBeheadings , even though it planned on reading all of the stories nominated for Britain's National Short Story prize. Apparently the reason for deciding against reading this story on the air was its current-ness.

The story is darkly humorous, but also poignant and scary as all get-out. And it's a lesson for writers in effective use of point of view. A short and worthy read.

Remember Dalton Trumbo's JOHNNY GET YOUR GUN? What about Gabriel Maria Remarque's ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT? These used to be required reading when I was in high school. Perhaps they still are. Their anti-war message is very clear.

Now, though, a different message has been given to our students. High schools allow and even encourage military recruiters to solicit the next generation of soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen (and women).

But some of them, and their families, have learned the hard way that the President, our government, or just the entire existing system has little consideration for the soldiers on the ground, the people involved in the conflict, or the harm being done in the name of "fighting terrorism."

And you can hear their voices.

I heard this morning that there is another CNMI man coming home from the war in Iraq for burial. Leroy Camacho.

I want to cry. Such a sad and mournful event.

I want to scream. Such a needless loss.

There are other opportunities for our young men and women. They might require hard work. They might not be draped in red, white and blue. But they are honorable and moral.

1. Education--college, vocational education. Studying and writing and reading and researching--these activities are easier than marching, slogging through heat and grime, killing and living with fear.

2. Jobs in the states--if you're willing to move for a military career, you can be willing to move for better-paying jobs with better benefits in the mainland.

3. The religious life--dedicate yourself to peace and love. We need more priests, brothers, nuns.

We are not in the midst of World War II, where our military men and women were fighting against evil, where the moral equation justified the war. Signing up for a military career at present is agreeing to follow leaders like our President who make immoral choices. Joining the war effort now is agreeing to become a murderer.

I don't believe anyone from the CNMI who has died in Iraq knew that before deployment. I think we have failed to discuss the ramifications of a military career now. We continue to laud praise and glory on the slain soldiers. And those soldiers are innocents led to slaughter.

But we can't claim innocence forever. We have a duty to educate ourselves. We have a duty to educate our CNMI youth--and stop promoting jingoism.

Patriotism does not require blind allegiance to an immoral war.

Saipan blogger has a post inviting, encouraging everyone to turn out alongside the road to the airport on Saturday afternoon as the body of Marine Lance Corporal Emul is brought home for burial. I won't be there.

I'll pray for Marine Lance Corporal Emul, but I won't be there to salute his military life.

I think the war in Iraq is wrong. His death is a waste of God-given life--it's not honorable, it's not heroic. It's sinful.

Until we start getting the message to our sons and daughters in the CNMI that they have other options, better options, besides participating in the war machine, we will continue to mourn the useless death of young, beautiful people. Until we take a moral stand against war and the political processes that produce it, we will be responsible for the deaths of our young men and women.

I won't be there, because I don't want anyone to think I support the war, support the military mentality that honors death more than life.

I won't be there in protest against the war. I won't be there in protest against the military that knows only how to fight and not how to create peace. I won't be there in protest against the politicians and military men and women that support hurting people in distant lands because of some amorphous "American" interest that only puts money in the pockets of warmongers.

I won't be there, but I'll pray for Marine Lance Corporal Emul, and for all the nameless people he might have killed in this senseless war.