The True Cost of War

Veteran’s Day is over for another year. For most of us. For my husband, Jack, and hundreds of thousands of this country’s warriors, the consequences of war never really end. These combat soldiers and sailors and Marines don’t want our pity.

A free lunch at Applebee’s is grand. Cards and cookies from school children go a long way to promote the healing of old wounds. But there’s a better way to honor these men and women we claim are so important to us and to our country.

Our politicians wrap themselves in a flag colored in someone else’s blood, call for justice and vengeance and plain ole love of country.  That’s fine. War is necessary from time to time. But the next time you have the urge to put a military boot in some countries ass, consider the true, the real cost of war.  All war.

You want to honor our veterans? Do it all year long by recognizing that there is no glory in war.  Not in any war. Ever.  Honor our veteran’s by thinking long and hard before voting for, before even thinking about, sending young men and women into a bloody situation from which they will, quite frankly, never fully recover.