ninme

I always feel like an idiot around Memorial Day. Either I’m keeping my head down because I don’t really have anything profound or meaningful to add, or else I raise my head, catch a glimpse of the little old men in the VFW caps marching in the parades and start bawling.

NYT - The Troops Have Moved On. By OWEN WEST (I know I never thought I’d link to the NYT for Memorial Day either) (”Owen West, a reserve Marine major who served in Iraq, is the founder of Vets for Freedom”.)

Somehow Operation Iraqi Freedom, not a large war by America’s historical standards, has blossomed into a crisis of expectations that threatens our ability to react to future threats with a fist instead of five fingers. Instead of rallying we are squabbling, even as the slow fuse burns.

One party is overly sanguine, unwilling to acknowledge its errors. The other is overly maudlin, unable to forgive the same. The Bush administration seeks to insulate the public from the reality of war, placing its burden on the few. The press has tried to fill that gap by exposing the raw brutality of the insurgency; but it has often done so without context, leaving a clear implication that we can never win.

…America’s conscience is one of its greatest strengths. But self-flagellation, especially in the early stages of a war against an enemy whose worldview is uncompromising, is absolutely hazardous. Three years gone and Iraq’s most famous soldiers are Jessica Lynch and Lynndie England, a victim and a criminal, respectively. Abu Ghraib remains the most famous battle of the war.

Soldiers are sick of apologizing for a sliver of malcontents who are not at all representative of the new breed. But they are also sick of being pitied. Our warriors are the hunters, not the hunted, and we should celebrate them as we did in the past, for while our tastes have changed, warfare — and the need to cultivate national guardians — has not. As Kipling wrote, “The strength of the pack is the wolf.”

And my favourite patriotic song, Mark Steyn’s song of the day (second item):

Steyn Online - THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

Also, most likely a ninme Exclusive, an account of the Scottish American Memorial Day Service in Edinburgh, courtesy of Intrepid Scotland Correspondent Rueful Red:

I hope you’ll be pleased to know that this lunchtime I attended the Scottish American Memorial Day Service in Princes St Gardens, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. It’s organised by a charity of which I’m a trustee, and this year we had a USAF honour guard (flags, rifles, all that) and a British Army piper, bugler, and standing-around officer bloke. Wreaths were laid by the Lord Provost, assorted politicians and Service types. I so enjoyed singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” even if 1)I can think of more immediately singable tunes and 2)I always have this urge to say “play ball!” at the end.

The reason why the event is held in the Gardens is because that’s where there’s a socking great monument to Americans of Scottish descent who fought in the the World Wars. It cost $50,000 in 1923 so it weren’t cheap.

I thought I’d contribute something you likely won’t find at any of the other blogs. But let me recommend Bubblehead’s, Phibian’s, the sundry submariners, and the boys at the Milblog Ring.