The horrors of war are all too familiar: lives lost, homes destroyed, entire communities forced to flee. Yet as time passes, places that once were sites of death and destruction can become peaceful natural refuges.
Valuing critical dissent and realizing more work needs doing are essential to true patriots. Pseudo patriots, however, wish only to emphasize a country’s heroes and heroics, and minimize or ignore its villains and villainy.
Even after the Armistice of November 11, 1918 ending World War One, American soldiers were carrying out heroic missions. Lieutenant Orville C. Bell and officers in the American Relief Administration saved civilians in Montenegro from starvation.
Despite the dismal state of Iraq today and to a lesser extent of Afghanistan, America’s veterans can be proud of their achievements over the past 13 years.
For one thing, it's not Veterans Day, it's Remembrance Day. For another, it's not an official holiday, even though some 200,000 Irishman fought in World War I.
