the opinionist

Last week I had the pleasure of travelling to Washington DC for a conference. This was my first visit to such a distinguished city; steeped in history and representative of the most powerful nation in the world. I had many expectations and desperately keen to visit the key landmarks when given the chance - before and after a plethora of conference meetings and activities. In actuality - I was blown away by the experience and greatly humbled by the war memorials spaced carefully and with well intention along and around the reflecting pool and the imposing Lincoln Memorial.

It would be calacious and quite missing the point to try and compare each memorial - dedicated to the sacrifice and staggering loss of so many brave souls - as each one, the World War II, the Korean and the Vietnam memorial, truly pound your chest with emotion and choke you with a swirl of sad thoughts and anguished conclusions.

Technorati Tags: afghanistan, iraq, korea, politics, bush, vietnam, war on terror

Walking away from these great testaments to the valor and the struggle of the American vision for liberty and democracy … I felt foolish and ignorant if I did not try to contemplate the current fight this country - (and its allies) - are now facing. The ‘War on Terror‘ - of Afganistan, Iraq and those other splintered unmentioned but equally desperate battles fought on our behald around the world! We don’t hear much about them (for good reason) but we know they exist. Upon what sacred ground will these memories reside and character of our brave military (and intelligence services) be placed?It is all too apparent that trying to predict the end to this current conflict is naive and perhaps irresponsible. The struggle against the radical Islamicists will be a long one - with no end in sight - for years and perhaps decades. There is a conscious and terribly important fight raging inside the soul of every American citizen to understand this conflict and formulate a firm and unwavering decision on the merit of this venture on the world, this nation and each individual wallowing in the comforts and freedoms it affords us!

Those that pertain to think for ‘us’ - these elected politicians, the movers-and-shakers, the self-prescribed intelligentsia of media and other venerated ‘do gooders’ … they pound their opinions upon us all each and every day and night through internet, television and print … They try to redefine the threat we face from an almost endless list of radicalized religious intolerants, state-funded terrorists, third-world rogue nations and every other remotely empowered country deemed to hold a grudge or jealous rage against everything the United States of America represents, holds sacred and dares to enjoy.

So with all this said; with the battle for hearts-and-minds raging within this country of ours …
With the daily escalation of this War, the staggering losses of the military and the innocent throughout the conflict and the sheer overwelming scale of the task ahead. What memorial should we ever dare errect to this our ‘War on Terror’?

If not some hallowed ground - with careful design - encapsulating the lives wrecked, the carnage delivered, the innocents lost and the wounded treated but then forgotten - will this nation itself become a torn and dismembered memorial to a once great nation that forgot the reason why it fought the good fight?

More people need to visit D.C. and each and every stirring and deeply moving war memorial and perhaps some scope can be applied to the latest struggle this nation finds itself thrust upon - and a critical conclusion will take root.

Posted on December 19th, 2006 under Korea, Memorial, Vietnam, WWII, War on Terror, Washington •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback