Posted by Orin Kerr:
Kieran Healy Doesn't Get It:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_29-2005_06_04.shtml#1117494596
Kieran Healy has authored a post about Memorial Day over at [1]Crooked
Timber that seems designed to get lots of people hopping mad. It no
doubt will succeed. Here is the entire post, titled "Memorial Day":
For those of us in the U.S., today is Memorial Day. America has a
fine tradition of military service and sacrifice. The best way to
respect and honor it is to reflect on what it means to serve and
perhaps die for your country, and to think about the value of the
cause, the power of the reasons, and the strength of the evidence
you would need before asking somone�someone like your brother, or
friend, or neighbor�to take on that burden. That so many are
willing to serve is a testament to the character of ordinary people
in the United States. That these people have, in recent years,
shouldered the burden of service for the sake of a badly planned
war begun in the name of an ill-defined cause, on the thinnest of
pretexts, and with the most flimsy sort of evidence, is an
indictment of the country�s political class.
It seems to me that this exactly what Memorial Day doesn't mean.
Memorial Day is about honoring the sacrifice of those who gave up
their lives fighting in the name of the United States. It is about the
living honoring the dead, recognizing their passing and reaffirming
our memory and appreciation for what they did. It is about the troops,
the grunts, the front-line soliders who left home and did not return.
Memorial Day is not a time to separate out which of the dead served
and died for good reasons or bad; to second-guess which decisions to
declare war, launch a campaign or charge a hill were justified or not;
or to test your ability to invent a populist voice to make cheap shots
against an Administration you depise. I'm sure there are good times
for that, but Memorial Day isn't one of them.
References
1. http://crookedtimber.org/2005/05/30/memorial-day/
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