My great-grandparents fought in Syria’s army in World War I for the Allied Powers, which eventually earned them an expedited path to U.S. citizenship. This historical anecdote allows me to account for my presence in the U.S., which I can do without kissing the ground on which I was born or giving thanks my family left its homeland.
As none of my relatives or friends died fighting in the military, I have no personal connection to Memorial Day, and I confess openly I am not patriotic enough to blindly memorialize those who have died fighting for the U.S. There is a distinction to be made between remembering and blindly memorializing.
What I saw this Memorial Day was an endless string of adulatory and syrupy posts of American flags, pool parties and beer, with one underlying theme: the triumph of America. Our way of life, of which violence has always been a crucial part, has come out on top, and people died to make your beach day possible.
Politicians posted ridiculous pictures in war cemeteries with paragraphs of vote-getting remarks.
This is not a legitimate way of commemorating the lives of those who died in supposed service of their country. For one, soldiers die in the service of the State (the government), which always posits itself against the Nation (everyday people like you and me, and the soldiers themselves).
I am not advocating for the desecration of the memory of those who have died in wars. In the reading of that sentence, one thinks only of American soldiers who have died abroad. Conspicuously absent are their victims, as well as American soldiers who die upon returning home.
Think of our brothers and sisters abroad, like the Vietnamese children whose last breath was poison sprayed into their lungs to save them from Communism, or the Iraqi babies who died at the hands of those liberating them from a despot. Or the Yemeni families who walk in fields not knowing if they will be eliminated by a drone.
I pity those who end up in the military because, in large part, the recruitment efforts rely on the myth of the rugged American individual and the false promise of escaping dire socioeconomic conditions. As Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed so poignantly, why should poor Americans join the military to fight thousands of miles away for conditions and rights they aren’t even afforded in their own country?
As Sartre mentioned, the poor fight wars so the rich may enrich themselves even more. This assertion is not controversial, and anyone with their eyes open can accept that our military exploits of late have everything to do with arms sales and political hegemony and nothing to do with spreading democracy in our fragile world.
Philosophically, the assertion that our freedom is born of our war victories is patently false and also creates an inroad to fascism. Thus, I do indeed remember those who died needlessly in service of whichever state sought more power and more resources, and I mourn their victims and the loss of innocence.
I close with the words of an anointed poet, Bob Dylan, who sang in “Masters of War”: “Come you masters of war / you that build all the guns / you that build the death planes / you that build all the bombs / you that hide behind walls / you that hide behind desks / I just want you to know / I can see through your masks.”
Jordan MacKenzie is a second-year UF linguistics master’s student. His column appears on Thursdays.
