Posts Tagged ‘photo-journalism’

I am still in a Veterans’ Day frame of mind.  War seems the continual state of human condition, there is always a war somewhere, isn’t there?  And at times, twice in the last century, virtually the entire world convulsed at once.  Our date, 11 November, was once called Armistice Day because on the 11th day of the 11th month and at the 11th hour in 1918, the armistice ending World War I was signed.

Another war is ongoing…in Iraq, and one in Afghanistan.  There is fear it could pull in Pakistan as well.  And Israel wants us to make war on Iran for the same panopoly of reasons the war with Iraq began.  I ask you to look back at Viet Nam.  Consider the dead, and consider the living and the way, in shame and anger, the country turned away from those men.  Is that what will happen to the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan?

I’d like to say that my generation….those who saw Viet Nam, women like me who welcomed back those men, will not let that happen.  But the government?  Well, they all wish all the old soldiers would quietly fade away.  Don’t believe me?  See the picture above?  It is from the Spiegel in a photo-journal recalling World War I, the “Great War” that gave us Veterans’ Day.  It notes that the German government, shamed by loss after BOTH wars, didn’t even bother to keep track of the veteran survivors in ANY official capacity.  No public governmental notice was given, last year, when Germany’s last two veterans of the “Great War” died.   It happened there, and it can happen here. (Go Look: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-37026.html )

Remember.  Remember the dead, but do not forget the living.