I love my country, but am sometimes sad to live in a country that loves war so much, and where angry old men send idealistic young ones off to die and be maimed. I think if the old men had to go, peace would triumph quickly.  I am never sure how to honor the veterans, I’m not into 21-gun salutes, I like to pause and look in their faces and eyes, I see them in the parades and Red and I see them in therapy work.

There is a special look on their faces, a mixture of sadness and weariness, you see it in veterans of almost every age. I cannot imagine going away to engage in combat, I cannot really grasp what it must be like.  I have read a thousand books about it, but cannot pretend that I can really imagine it or understand it. That would be insulting to the people who do know. Memorial Day makes me think of peace, of empathy and compassion. The Native-Americans claim that the message of the horses is to remind us that we are at a crossroads, we shall either live in harmony or perish together, one way or another.

Violence seems to live and endure in the human genome, but so does peace and love.

The cynical say that we will either find a way to kill one another or, failing that, destroy Mother Earth. I am no Dystopian, I believe in hope and the triumph of the better side of the human spirit. So I always nod my head in gratitude for the veterans and hope that future generations will not have any veterans’ to see.