Memorialize What?

Last night my eyes and ears were bombarded with coverage of maimed men and women in uniform being caressed by loved ones and crying while listening to really cheesy music on Capitol Hill. This is supposed to be the weekend when we all remember and give thanks for the sacrifices that other people made for our freedom. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad today’s a government holiday, because now I could sit around and this afternoon I could jam with a friend. But the reason for this holiday is pretty much fictional.

Granted, there are a few dead or wounded soldiers who really were or are heroes. But most of them were just victims of the state, and so deserve not our praise but our pity.

After I was subjected to those images on television my dad and I went to have dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in San Jose. While waiting for our vegetarian combo, I got a call from my brother who told me of a young man in Long Beach who was hunted down on foot and trapped in an alley where he was shot and killed execution style. The guy had been involved in gang activity, and finally got what is not unusual for men and women in his trade.

There isn’t much relevant difference between the sacrifice this man made and the sacrifices made by those in uniform. The men and women in uniform have nicer outfits, bigger guns, a gang sign that you don’t need both hands to display, and the occasional self-righteous belief that what they’re doing is actually good for others. And if they do loose their lives while committing their gang activity, their names are projected in red white and blue on the ceilings of outdoor stages and their mothers are asked to read their last letters on TV.

I once had the privilege of seeing a grown man bullied into joining others in some act which may likely have been violent. He kept saying “No! I told you I don’t do that shit no more!” It didn’t really work, because after a while another man looked him in the eye, said a few strong words, and the man followed him into a black truck as a Mexican woman crossed her heart and looked at the sky. The men and women in uniform aren’t subjected to that kind of bullying. If they try to pull out of their gang activity, they could be kidnapped and locked in a room for a few years.

We’re supposedly honoring those who paid the price for our freedom (Christian idolatry, anyone?), but this holiday is meant instead to legitimize a process in which human beings are transformed into commodities to be spent for the convenience of others. And if this holiday really does what it’s meant to do, then it is part of that same commoditizing process. Of course that doesn’t really matter, since most of us treat it as just another day to have a beer and a bbq in a park.