I'll take a moment and break my self-imposed silence (I decided I'd take off from blogging for three weeks while I deal with the blog move - it's been weird...) and add my reminder to the remembrances of Pearl Harbor that have floated around the blogs. Not as many as in the past, and I think that outside the milblogs, there's a real fatigue about issues of war and peace that has settled over not only the blogs but the commentariat as a whole.
That's worrisome, because to paraphrase - we may be tired of war, but that doesn't mean war is tired of us.
Here's a quote from my local paper, the ever-thinning Daily Breeze:
When the distant drone of warplanes broke the peace of morning on that "day of infamy" 67 years ago, 19-year-old Seaman 1st Class Leonard Brugnola was sitting in a church pew, awaiting the morning service in Aiea, a hillside enclave overlooking the Pacific Fleet.And when the first torpedoes splashed into the placid blue waters of Pearl Harbor, piercing the hulls of American warships, Fred Dietrich was on duty in the engine room of the USS Phoenix, where he served as a machinist.
"I was there that morning, and I won't ever forget what happened," Brugnola says. "The smell of burning oil, the cries for help - those things don't leave you."
Yet "Never Forget," the rallying cry of millions of war veterans, is slowly fading for the witnesses of the sneak attack that propelled the U.S. into global conflict in 1941.
Now, nearly seven decades later, both longtime South Bay residents are among the few living survivors who saw the dawn of the war for America.
Their ranks thinned by age and time, World War II veterans are dying at a rate of 900 a day. Many fear the personal accounts of heroism and bravery that serve as living American history may slip away with them.
New soldiers, with equally-strong new memories, are taking their place. And their stories are equally a part of our patrimony and so our patriotism.
Today,Code Pink is holding its annual Los Angeles event: "War is SO Over: Prepare for PEACE!"
We can only hope...
"War is SO Over: Prepare for PEACE!"
Hostilities only cease when the antagonist relents.
The ridiculous horrors at Code Pink believe that is us.
I think we will need more than Hope.
Step one: airlifing all code Pink members to preach that gospel amidst al-Qaeda's strongholds in Quetta, Pakistan.
Tickets to be paid for by selling the filmed results on pay-per-view, as a very special "Survivor" spinoff series.
bq "War is SO Over: Prepare for PEACE!"
The Whistling Pig,
As reported by
Robert Frezza
in the novels
A Small Colonial War, Fire in a Faraway Place & Cain's Land
CHORUS
'We're having a war,
and we want you to come!'
So the pig began to whistle
and to pound upon a drum
'We'll give you a gun,
and we'll give you a hat!'
And the pig began to whistle
when they told the piggies that!
GENERAL VERSES
The pig put on his webbing,
and they marched him up and down
He did it with a whistle,
so they gave him sand to pound
He crossed the burning desert,
and he trekked the arctic night
And they made him do it over
so he'd learn to do it right
The pig cleaned up his webbing,
and he shined his bayonet
Some people started shooting,
so he shot them with regret
He couldn't work an office,
and he couldn't be a clerk
For pigs who like to whistle,
like to whistle while they work
The pig went on vacations,
to places near and far,
For fighting wars on schedule,
makes for very good PR.
The generals love the piggies,
and the natives think them swell,
Or At least they often say so
after putting them through hell.
TOPICAL VERSES
The bombings and the shootings
kept the pig from getting sleep,
But mines are very nice
for keeping wolves away from sheep.
The general got impatient
when the natives tried to play,
But the Piggy cleaned a pistol,
and the problem went away!
Some people dressed in colors
with the money that they had,
The strutted in their costumes
'til they made the piggies mad.
They made themselves a nuisance
when they tried to legislate,
But pigs who like to whistle
also like affairs of state.
ENDING VERSES
Pigs whistle when they lose,
and they whistle when they win,
'Cause when the shooting's over
they scrub off and start again.
Wars are sometimes over
and they debited his pay,
They took away his hat
and then they took his gun away,
They told him they were thankful
and they split him north to south
As they fried him with a whistle
and an apple in his mouth!
The pig had bought a homeland
and he earned it with his sweat,
He filled it full of corpses
just to liquidate the debt.
He taught the people manners
and it didn't take him long
To teach them how to whistle
and to sing The Whistle Song!
The pig came home from warring
and began to sing a song,
"My homeland isn't perfect
but it's closer right than wrong."
He wore a sprig of laurel,
and he waved an olive twig,
And he whistled to the people
so he'd be a whistling pig!
Someday, there won't be fighting,
they'll put the guns away,
Men will love each other,
and join their hands to pray.
Peace will come forever,
people won't get shot and die-
*And on that day, the pigs
will spread their wings and fly!*
"Step one: airlifing all code Pink members to preach that gospel amidst al-Qaeda's strongholds in Quetta, Pakistan."
Forget that. How about ending the terror in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. All that situation needs is a little diplomacy and cooperation of the Global Village.