Memorial Day

Today we honor our fallen. Those who, one way or another, paid the price in lives cut short to serve in the military.

Even in these last few decades where few of the conflicts we've mired ourselves in were just or in the national interest - at a minimum to the scope we've taken to the field - insofar as we still have actual teeth, the military has served the vital role of being the stick to talk-diplomacy's carrot. You don't get a bully to stop with letters to the editor or asking for the manager.

In that role, in dusty fields, tropical jungles, and high mountain passes, they spent their lives so that others may live. I fervently hope, despite decades bleeding out the strength of the armed forces, stupid rules of engagement with no bearing on reality, stupid logistics and doctrine that prevent us from fighting the enemy we actually face, and social engineering of the armed forces by elevating the issue of the week over fighting capability, that reality weeds out the unfit, for the alternatives are worse.

Incidentally, the 28th of May is the anniversary of Audie Murphy's death in 1971. The Sabaton song about him lifts many of it's lyrics from his poem:

The Crosses Grow on Anzio

Oh, gather 'round me, comrades
And listen while I weep;
Of a war, a war, a war...
where hell is six feet deep.

Along the shore, the cannons roar.
Oh how can a soldier sleep?
The going's slow on Anzio
And hell is six feet deep.

Praise be to God for this captured sod
That's rich where blood does seep;
With yours and mine, like butchered swine;
And hell is six feet deep.

That death does wait
There's no debate;
No triumph will we reap
The crosses grow on Anzio,
Where hell is six feet deep.

- Audie Murphy