Do We Glorify War?

President George W. Bush often claimed that America "does not glorify war."

Television stations and cable networks across the land spent last weekend proving the opposite.

Memorial Day had its start as "Decoration Day." A day to decorate the graves of those who fell in the American Civil War. The only decorating that goes on these days is when elected officials ceremonially place wreaths on symbolic graves. Our population, for the most part, has no knowledge and understanding of the everyday sacrifices of military families. Even less are they connected with the anguish of the families of deceased soldiers, sailors and airmen.

Decoration Day was a day in which survivors could share their anguish, even as they decorated the graves. This was not a march of triumph.

Armistice Day (as I choose to continue calling November 11th) was a celebration. Not a celebration of victory, but of the end of a conflict that ended the world as Europeans and Americans had known it in 1914.

Each time, we promise never to forget. We have finally learned our lesson.

But our learning process never keeps pace with our forgetting tendencies.

Especially when the sacrifices have been made by someone else.