Each year, our Moonhowlings poet laureate, George Harris very kindly prepares his reflections for Memorial Day. George entered the Navy during the Korean War at the tender age of 18. He served in Vietnam as well. Thank you for your service, Captain Harris, and for your reflections on this Memorial Day weekend, 2014.
MEMORIAL DAY 2014
Capt. George Harris
A few days after this Memorial Day, I will celebrate my 81st birthday. And as I reflect back on the past eight decades, I find that our nation has been engaged in war for half of my lifetime. In my lifetime I have seen or been involved in four wars: World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the on-going war in Iraq and Afghanistan—a total of 40 years.
Since our beginning as a nation, our Armed Forces have been in something like 319 “Military Engagements”, including one war among ourselves. Our Civil War resulted in the death of 625,000 Americans in a war that pitted fathers against sons and brothers against brothers. Our second most costly war was World War II, which cost us 405,399 dead. All these “engagements” have cost us something on the order of 275,000,000 lives lost and uncountable wounded whose lives were changed forever. And this does not count those events where we only gave material or fiscal aid nor does it count operations by the CIA.
