Veteran's Day

Yes, I respect veterans. Yes, I support the troops and think they should be honored when they come home - especially since over 500,000 troops have come home with some form of depression or PTSD. (Personally, I think the lives and mental health of our citizens is too high a price to pay for the wars they are currently fighting.)

That said, Veteran's Day is my least favorite holiday. I find myself sad and snarky. 

And Veteran's Day is one of those holidays you have to be on good behavior, that while you do have the freedom of speech, if you use it on this day, people frown when they look in your general direction. People like spending the day waving flags and thanking veterans for defending our freedoms and democracy. It's not a good day to point out that the notion of "defending our freedoms and democracy" is a cultural myth. That actually, last time I checked, our democracy was not on the endangered species list. That not since the war with England has a single US soldier died for our freedoms or democracy. 

I spend the day wondering, what if we honored education as much as we honored the military?  The immediate answer, of course, is that people would have education enough to know that not a single US soldier has died defending our freedoms since the war with England. 

But really, what if we valued education as much as the military? What if we valued the lives of our citizens to such a degree that we were unwilling to send them into wars (legal or illegal) to have them killed or come home with mental illnesses?  

 What if we honored education (and I mean actual education, not the training that comes out of standardized test constructed curriculum), critical thinking and constructive problem solving skills that we found a way to resolve conflicts that didn't require the military? We attempt to raise our children with the notion that they need to talk - not fist fight - their way through their differences. What if the government was the one who set the example? 

(This is one of my childhood scars, my claws come out at the first sign of the "do as I say not as I do" child raising mentality.)

And, as the old bumper sticker says, what if we valued and funded education to such a degree that it was the military that had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?

What if we lived in a world where all countries' military existed to feed citizens, disaster relief and things that forwarded life? What if we saw ourselves as citizens of the Earth, not a country, region, city, race or gang to defend? 

You may say I'm a dreamer; my husband calls me a socialist. I don't think I'm the only one in the marriage. When critics accuse Obama of European-izing the country, we 're both yelling at the radio, "Good!" And anyway, even if I am a dreamer, as John Lennon says, I'm not the only one.

What if we created new conversations for what's possible for humanity? Wouldn't that be worth a holiday?

(Thank you Jerah Marquardt for inspiration)