By John Ballard
On Memorial Day and Veteran's Day I often commemorate the savagery of war with a blog post. We observe separate days of recognition for warriors -- Memorial Day for the dead and Veterans Day for those who returned more or less alive. Both came about as the result of a specific conflict (Civil War and WWI respectively) but the living rememer the dead on both occasions and few of them know the history of either so it is hard to separate the two
The last six years have furnished plenty of material for both.
I was reminded this year by an NPR feature.
Below that is a post from a young soldier's war blog from 2005.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005Final Roll Call
The Memorial Service for SPC. Anthony Cometa was held today at 1500 at the Chapel in Zone 1 at AJ.
Alot of other people from other units were there, alot of high brass was there too. They had the typical Rifle in the ground with Kevlar and Dogtags hanging from the buttstock. The service went with a singing of the national anthem and an opening prayer. Then the commander talked about Cometa. After him, his 3 of his friends; 2 of em were the bandmates, talked about Tony.
Even at that point it didn't quite hit me. It was sad, the whole ordeal, no way around that. I mean, he was a friend, someone I personally knew, and someone that I would not see for a long long time. Yet; it still seemed unreal.
But then the Final Roll Call came. I've never been to a memorial service before, so I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't really think much of what the Final Roll Call would be like.
The 1SG of our unit came up to the front; we were all called to the position of attention, and he shouted out the names:
"SGT. Allman! HERE,First Sgt"
"SPC. Collins! HERE, First Sgt""SPC. Cometa......"
at that point, for some reason, I broke.
"SPC. ANTHONY COMETA"
tears starting welling up....
"SPC. ANTHONY S. COMETA...Final Call...Dropped from Roll Call"
In my head, my mind was yelling out, Answer up Tony...but I knew why there was no answer....
They then proceeded to play "Taps" while the 21 Gun Salute was performed.
I haven't cried like this for as long as I can remember.
When we finally sat down, I got ahold of myself, wiped the tears off, and collected myself. we had a final prayer and the procession was over. All the people at the ceremony then proceeded to walk by Tony's picture and Rifle display for a final rendering of the salute. Our unit went last. I walked up, looked at Tony one last time, Saluted my fellow "ex-PV2" and said goodbye.
That was that...
~~~�~~~
With an "all volunteer" military those of us who were drafted will soon be forgotten. Besides, conscription only fed the Army; the other branches have always been filled by enlistments. And thanks to technological advances, executive orders and civilian outsourcing of previously all-military jobs war isn't what it once was.
I'm not sure what the ratio of civilian to military casualties is (a statistic impossible to determine anyway) but my guess is that civilians now pay a greater price than combatants in death and injury. A quick search returned this, which is certain to trigger more arguments than answers.
Howard Zinn recently gave a talk in Madison, Wisconsin, in which he described the changing ratio of military to civilian deaths. World War I: 10:1; World War II: 50:50; Vietnam War: 30:70; in the wars since: 20:80 to 15:85, with children comprising one-third of the civilian tolls most recently.
Seems to me a day of remembrance for civilian casualties of war is overdue, at least for children.
Wait...our kids aren't the one's getting killed are they? That explains it.
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