Feels more like shame.

It's the Memorial Day weekend in America. A holiday. Intended to remember and honor the war dead. I'm curious today. Wondering how many lives have been sacrificed in the name of American-sponsored wars. All kinds of wars. Good wars. Bad wars. Maybe some wars that fell inbetween bad and good. Depending on one's political affiliation. But in general terms, from the philosophical and spiritual perspective, I suppose all wars are bad. An indication that we humans are savages. We find it necessary to kill each other. We even wage civil wars. Americans pitted against Americans. We've learned to kill indiscriminately. Each other. Over our internal political differences. Sometimes, we don't even bother to declare war anymore. And we've developed sophisticated weapons of mass destruction. We can wipe out entire cities. With a single bomb. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. We Americans deserve credit/blame for mass killing. And not only that, we've devised moral justification for it all. We declare ourselves as morally superior to the rest of the world. Our foes. They are labeled the real savages. By the way, one doesn't have to be a soldier to be a war dead. More civilians, more women and children, more innocents, have been killed in our wars than actual uniformed soldiers. But seems to me, we've forgotten them. This weekend, we honor our soldiers. Many of whom were drafted/conscripted. Over their objections. But still, they went to war. Because it was the patriotic thing to do. Makes me wonder if our Maker approves. Makes me wonder if we've been doing the right thing all these years. Waging war after war after war. An endless string of wars. To tell the truth, I'm not feeling very patriotic today. Feels more like shame. --Jim Broede