CSotD: Remembering Johnny Soldier
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A nice salute to the fallen, which not only honors their sacrifice but recalls what they sacrificed for, in a way that serves as a reminder — and a rebuke if needed — as well as a tribute.
It’s all well and good to say “Freedom isn’t free,” but this is a good day not just to remember the past but to look at the present and to hope, and to work, for the future.
As for cartoons of people saluting gravestones, I saw a few but I’m not featuring them, in part because it’s a sentimental cliche and in part because I have doubts about civilians saluting.
When I was a kid, we’d see the convoys of reservists going by in summer, since Fort Drum was Camp Drum in those days and a reservist place rather than a permanent base. I remember waving but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn we also saluted. At seven years old I think that’s okay.
Later in life, you might want to think it over.
The Commander in Chief is entitled to salute, but, aside from whether or not it calls for being in uniform, there’s also the issue of to whom you extend the courtesy.
Apparently the practice of saluting in mufti was started by Ronald Reagan, which brings up the issue of how many veterans have held the office since, with the answer being GHW Bush and then we can discuss his son W’s status.
In fact, we should discuss W along with Clinton and Trump, because there’s a lot of hostile nonsense out there. There’s no doubt that getting into the reserves, as W did, was a way of avoiding being drafted, but the story is that W volunteered to be activated. I wasn’t there so I don’t know.
Clinton’s situation was more nuanced, in that he made a few attempts to avoid entering the draft, but then drew a 311 in the lottery. Whatever Clinton did before becoming eligible, there was not a chance in hell of someone with a 311 lottery number being called up.
And people did goof with the system, stopping somewhat short of actual dodging. I had a friend who was very close to the minimum weight and who had drawn a 1 in the lottery. It’s possible he may have skipped a few meals before reporting for his physical, but that’s not the same as showing up with a phony doctor’s letter citing a condition you don’t have. (Plus they’ll make you come back to be weighed again.)
As for Trump having five deferments, that’s an ignorant accusation. Everyone who went to college got a deferment each year they were in school and taking, IIRC, 12 hours of classes. You can debate whether there should have been such a deferment, but it was universal.
Granted, losing your II-S weighed on your mind if you were thinking of dropping out, and there were some guys in school for that reason alone, but a lot of others enlisted or were drafted after graduation.
Trump was among millions who had four standard II-S deferments. It was his fifth deferment, the phony heel spurs claim, that amounted to draft-dodging.
Phil Ochs wrote a funny song on the topic, but the point was that dodging was cowardice. If you didn’t believe in the war, the moral route was to resist and do jail time, and I had friends who did.
I had a lot of friends, though, with a lot of different experiences. Here’s what I learned: You don’t know what you’re going to do until that letter arrives.
Or, in the words of Mike Tyson, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Juxtaposition of the Day
On the other hand, however you feel about what people did half a century ago, more recent actions and statements matter, and cartoonists need only quote the president accurately to make his attitude about the military clear. These aren’t things he said as a dumbass college kid but statements he made while he was Commander in Chief.
Though I suppose it’s worth referring back to RJ Matson’s piece, since we’re currently arresting and deporting people for statements made when they were dumbass college kids. And even if they were smart ones.
It does indeed seem strange that the same people who attacked Clinton for delaying and finagling until he drew that 311, and who piled on John Kerry, believing the lies that were used to besmirch his experience in battle, have now joined ranks to support a draft dodger who has insulted them and denigrated their service and their sacrifices.
But here we are.
Maybe this isn’t the day to talk about this sort of stuff, but, then again, Smith suggests that if we don’t talk about it now, we may not be allowed to talk about it later.
The secret police snatched a Florida-born American citizen the other day, claiming his Real ID license was fake, and now he’s being charged with interference because he was taking a video of them arresting people, an action repeatedly declared legal by courts but no longer permitted by Homeland Security.
The boots are on the staircase.
But don’t listen to me. Here’s what Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. had to say about Memorial Day, and why we celebrate it. His remarks are absolute must reading on this holiday.
Holmes served 28 years on the Supreme Court, was a veteran wounded three times in the Civil War — at the battles of Ball’s Bluff, Antietam and Second Fredericksburg — and was active in veterans’ affairs.
When he died, nearly three-quarters of a century after the war in which he had fought, he was buried according to his wishes along with his comrades at Arlington Cemetery.
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