This Writer Wrote

Tomorrow we will gather together with family for picnics and barbecues because it is a National Holiday that so many have off from work.

But more importantly, it is a time to honor and remember the men and women who died to make it possible for our picnics and barbecues… and those men and women who are offering up their sweat and blood so that their families, friends, coworkers, countrymen and countrywomen, and even strangers can have those carefree barbecues, picnics and baseball games.

I’m not talking whether a war is just or not or should be happening or not. That is a political matter for which we are all responsible, wherever we are. I’m talking about honoring those men and women who shed blood and those who have given their lives for home whether they believe in what they are doing or not.

Too often, wounded and shell-shocked veterans come home to neglect and an uncaring populace. Too often, caskets are returned to broken-hearted families in communities that show little concern beyond lip service and flying flags. It breaks my heart to see this.

But since we are a nation who seems to prefer our history in the medium of TV and Film, let’s talk about something else that breaks my heart… how little support is given to TV shows and Movies that demonstrate what soldiers and wars are really all about. It seems too much like we’re a nation that doesn’t care.

It broke my heart when I was in the theater watching the excellent Stop Loss to see only 5 other pairs there. Granted that the movie had been out for a while, but it hasn’t had much of a box-office and yet it is about all of us allowing our young soldiers to become indentured servants and slaves because we don’t want to be drafted and we have ignored doing something about the war that requires more and more soldiers as fodder. I felt like I was watching the death throes of my beloved democracy, falling apart from within.

Then there was the excellent FX series Over There, which so very few people watched. It wasn’t fun to watch — it was unsettling — death was horrific on it, not pretty like so many of the shows we love to watch. But it shows you the sacrifices we are asking our men and women to make that result in them coming back wounded in body and mind or in caskets and body bags.

We Were Soldiers has an unforgettable scene in which the army wives see the taxi pull up with the officers who bear the death notices and pray that they aren’t coming to their house, knowing that in doing so, they are hoping misery falls on one of their friends. There is also Flags of our Fathers that reminds of how Native Americans fought for an America that summarily dismissed and rejected them and their sacrifice as soon as it finished using them and Windtalkers where Navajo Native Americans were willing to use their native language to provide an unbreakable code only to be paid back by a nation who considered the code-talkers so important that it was willing to slaughter the human beings doing it rather than allow them to fall into enemy hands and maybe lose a near-unbreakable code.

These are just the projects I can think of off the top of my head that give you a good idea of what war is all about and the sacrifices our fine young men and women make for us. I’m sure you guys can think of more.

If you’d rather have something documentary, rather than fiction, I suggest, Operation Homecoming: Writing the War Time Experience in which actors (including Beau Bridges, Justin Kirk, Josh Lucas, and Christopher Gorham) read pieces written by actual soldiers on active duty.

So this Memorial Day, take time out to honor and remember the fallen. And then take time out to honor them again by giving over your TV time to something that will help you understand what their sacrifice was about. For having a clear picture of what it is all about is the only way to think twice about sending men and women off to more wars.

For whether we oppose war or support war, we are all politically responsible for having it and asking our young men and women to fight and die for it. I don’t want to see what happened after the Viet Nam War occur again: where when we finally managed to end that war, we treated our returning Veterans like pariahs. They deserve so much better from us.