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The following it the final draft of the Memorial Day speech that
Pete McCloskey is to give at the Golden Gate National Cemetery
today. McCloskey was a company commander and silver star winner
from the Korean War. He was also the first (and possibly only)
major Republican to challenge Nixon on the conduct of the war. <br>
<br>
_____<br>
<font face="arial,helvetica"><font size="2" color="#000000"
face="Times New Roman">Memorial Day, 2011<br>
<br>
For over 145 years, we have set aside a day at the end of May to
honor our nation's war dead. It is a sacred day. We pause for
a brief moment to look out over the white crosses, and honor
those young men who lie beneath them. War is the work of young
men, not old. It has been thus since the greatest and most
tragic of our wars, the Civil War. Most of those buried here
served when one of the nation's values was that it was a duty to
serve the country.<br>
<br>
150 years ago this spring, our nation broke apart. Eleven
states seceded from the Union, believing that the Constitution,
as they read it, entitled them to do so. Young men died on both
sides, one believing that it was right to preserve the Union,
the other believing with equal sincerity that the North had no
right to change the way of life and values of those in the
South.<br>
<br>
Of a new nation of some 32 million people, over 700,000 died in
combat, or in prison camps. No war since has matched that
sacrifice.<br>
<br>
By World War II , our population had quadrupled to over 130
million, but we suffered only slightly over 400,000 deaths. In
Korea, some 36,000 died, and in Viet Nam, with our population
now over 160 million, 56,000 died. Most of those buried here
died in those three wars.<br>
<br>
But since, in a series of small conflicts, in Grenada, Panama,
Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, less than 12,000 have
died. Since 1971, we have had an entirely volunteer Army. In
nation of over 300,000 million people, less than one per cent of
our families have sons or daughters at risk.<br>
<br>
Significantly, during the eight years of the Viet Nam War
authorized by our Congress in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, no
sons of Members of Congress or Presidents fought there.<br>
<br>
And while we honor the dead, perhaps this Memorial Day, we
should stop and consider the hope expressed by Abraham Lincoln
at the Gettysburg battlefield that “these “honored dead shall
not have died in vain.” We might well stop and consider the
disconnect mentioned by Secretary of Defense Gates the other day
about the world's most powerful and prosperous nation fighting
its wars with only a fraction of its citizenry bearing the
burden.<br>
<br>
Perhaps we should reconsider that ethic of a national duty to
serve shared by the young men who lie underneath these
crosses…….perhaps some sort of national service where the
children of the privileged and wealthy also serve, where the
perils of combat are shared by young men and women of means and
education.<br>
<br>
And today, we should perhaps honor the most the few young
soldiers, largely from rural or impoverished areas, who have
died in Iraq and Afghanistan, or been maimed for life by the
most terrible of modern guerrilla weapons, the improvised
explosive device or I.E.D.<br>
<br>
For we ourselves make war with terror-inducing weapons. No
longer do we fight with rifles, grenades and bayonets, as did
most of the young men lying here in these beautiful rolling
hills. <br>
<br>
We now fight with weapons of “shock and awe,” the blockbuster
bomb, or guided missile delivered by an unmanned drone directed
by people in air-conditioned buildings here in the United
States. The so-called “collateral damage” when these weapons
suddenly land without warning in a village in the Muslim World
virtually guarantees the continuing <br>
hostility of their inhabitants and sympathizers around the
world.<br>
<br>
I can recall only one instance where this war by massive air
power had a favorable result, that being the overwhelming
bombardment in Serbia which effectively halted a cruel genocide,
and led to the trial of the murderous generals before the World
Court at The Hague. <br>
<br>
Of late, we have turned away from the concept of world peace
through world law for which we fought in World War II. We have
abandoned the principles of Nuremberg and Geneva which we led
the world to adopt.<br>
<br>
There could be no better time than Memorial Day to spend a few
moments in quiet consideration of where and when we loose the
dogs of war. The time draws near when our enemies will possess
that most terrible of weapons we introduced to end World War
II. <br>
<br>
Last week, our Congress gave thunderous approval to the idea of
going to war against Iran to prevent their acquisition of atomic
weapons. At the same time the Congress gave similar applause
to the Prime Minister of a country which has refused to sign the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but is known to possess over
l00 nuclear warheads.<br>
<br>
A famous Marine General and former National Security Advisor has
suggested that the evolving aspirations of people in North
Africa and the Mideast gives us the opportunity to reach out to
those people and presumably aid in overthrowing their leaders.
In the past we have overthrown the elected leaders of countries
with whom we disagreed, Mossadeq in Iran and Allende in Chile,
example. The end results have not been fortuitous.<br>
<br>
When and how will this all end? I wonder if the dead we honor
today were alive, might they not echo of one of this continent's
most famous warriors, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, who, with
his young men having mostly died in battle, and with Canada in
sight, surrendered his forces, saying “I will fight no more,
forever.”<br>
<br>
We will of course fight, but I think it well also to consider
the advice Abraham Lincoln gave us at Gettysburg: “It is for
us the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us- that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure
of devotion.”<br>
<br>
150 years ago, that cause was the preservation of the Union.
Today, it may be the preservation of the concept of World Peace
Through World Law, as it was in 1945.<br>
<br>
<br>
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