{"id":35242,"date":"2020-05-25T06:58:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T14:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=35242"},"modified":"2020-05-25T06:58:09","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T14:58:09","slug":"matthew-hoh-danny-sjursen-we-are-combat-vets-and-we-want-america-to-reboot-memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/25\/matthew-hoh-danny-sjursen-we-are-combat-vets-and-we-want-america-to-reboot-memorial-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Hoh & Danny Sjursen: We Are Combat Vets, and We Want America To Reboot Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Mother Jones:<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Pandemic or no, resilient Americans will celebrate Memorial Day together. Be it through Zoom or spaced six feet apart from ten or less loved ones at backyard cookouts, folks will find a way. In these peculiar gatherings, is it still considered cynical to wonder if people will spare much actual <\/em>thought for American soldiers still dying abroad\u2014or question the utility of America\u2019s forever wars? Etiquette aside, we think it\u2019s obscene not to. <\/p>\n

Just as the coronavirus has exposed <\/a>systemic rot, this moment also reveals how obsolete common conceptions of U.S. warfare truly are\u2014raising core questions about the holiday devoted to its sacrifices. The truth is that today\u2019s \u201cway of war<\/a>\u201d is so abstract, distant, and short on (at least American) casualties as to be nearly invisible to the public. With little to show <\/a>for it, Washington still directs bloody global campaigns, killing thousands of locals. America has no space on its calendar to memorialize these <\/em>victims: even the children <\/a>among them.<\/p>\n

Eighteen years ago, as a cadet and young marine officer, we celebrated the first post-9\/11 Memorial Day\u2014both brimming with enthusiasm for the wars we knew lay ahead. In the intervening decades, for individual <\/a>yet strikingly similar <\/a>reasons, we ultimately chose <\/a>paths of dissent. Since then, we\u2019ve penned <\/a>critical editorials around Memorial Days. These challenged the wars\u2019 prospects<\/a>, questioned <\/a>the efficacy of the volunteer military, and encouraged <\/a>citizens to honor the fallen by creating fewer of them.<\/p>\n

Read the rest of the article<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Mother Jones: Pandemic or no, resilient Americans will celebrate Memorial Day together. Be it through Zoom or spaced six feet apart from ten or less loved ones at backyard cookouts, folks will find a way. In these peculiar gatherings, is it still considered cynical to wonder if people will spare much actual thought for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-35242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"COVID-19 has killed more Americans than the Revolutionary, Mexican, Spanish, Indian, Philippine, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan Wars combined."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35242"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35244,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35242\/revisions\/35244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35242"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=35242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}