Memorial Day triggers many thoughts and memories for me. First off, this year, we celebrated Memorial Day on May 25^th, my Mother’s birthday. Unfortunately, she is no longer physically here for us to celebrate the grand day with her.  But she sent me an entire wall of wallpaper white butterflies.

     It is also a weekend when each year, some pretty oustanding men gather at a campsite on the south fork of the Gualala River, about forty five miles west of Healdsburg, and ten miles east of Stewart’s Point in Northern California. There are Redwood trees there over twenty five hundred years old. They were standing when Lao Tzu wrote the eighty some verses of the Tao Te Ching.

     No, they do not get together to reenact any wars!  These men gather each Memorial Day weekend to put their minds, hearts and souls together to create a more life giving world for all of us to live in. I’ve had the privilege of participating on several occasions, and it’s always life altering. If you want more information about the weekend, click on the link or call me.  http://www.redwoodmen.org

     Memorial Day is also the weekend of the great Indianapolis Five Hundred. We sat next to the radio each year listening with the same excitement of having front row seats. It’s what we did every Memorial Day without fail. What added to our excitement was Billy Vukovich. He was one of our very own (from Fresno, my home town). He won the race two years in a row. He was in the lead going for his third victory when suddenly the frantic voice of the announcer described our home town hero careening over the wall in a fiery crash. We stared at the still photos in the Fresno Bee. The television showed the footage one time. Replaying it over and over--you had to do that in your head in 1955.

     Flashing back to that May 30th, still triggers "sick" feelings in my stomach. I didn’t know Billy, Jr., but I knew we were the same age and rode our bicycles up and down the same streets. I always hoped he knew his Dad died for a "good cause." As it is, death is too slippery to grasp.

     And what in the world is a good cause? I hope we don’t get lost in our flag waving and gratitude to dead soldiers on Memorial Day that we forget that perhaps none of the wars our soldiers died for were, in fact, good causes. You see, war is uncivilized, which means that we are uncivilized

     According to the dictionary, civilize means to lead away from the savage. Savage, in turn, means untamed or uncivilized. Civilization is defined as a society that is organized around a higher order. The second definition of order is a state of peace!

     So is it an oxymoron to talk about civilized nations going to war, holy or otherwise?

     Obviously, there are many civilized nations who go to war, but the reality is war is untamed and savage. War is not civilized. No matter how strategically one targets the enemy, the enemy are people and people are blown apart and disintegrated. When the targeted bomb goes a little astray, it is not just military personnel, but CIVILians–real people, who are blown apart. Whether one is fighting hand to hand, which our soldiers are well trained to do, or one is fighting from an airplane, a ship at sea, or from a cannon some distance behind the front lines, or from a computer screen on the other side of the world, the aim of all weaponry, tactics, and strategies is to KILL the enemy, not to have the enemy surrender. This becomes particularly clear with bombs. One would look pretty stupid standing there waving a white flag as the bomb approached, although, we could capture it live on the warhead’s video camera!

     In recent years, I’ve heard military personnel referred to as "professionals." I know there are many duties and jobs within the military that require professionalism, but (I feel compelled to whisper this question) how does one kill, liquidate, and or wipe out the enemy professionally? Professionalism is an interesting way to sanitize what remains SAVAGE no matter how you label it!

     To train for war, a person must regress. You must learn to be uncivilized and savage. And we all know that once you train to become savage and uncivilized, it takes a LOT to come back, to trust again that anyone is civil. The wives and soldiers who are "victims" of murder suicides upon a soldier’s return are a dramatic testimony to that reality. The majority of soldiers who do not kill their wives or themselves but return emotionally frozen are also a testimony to that reality.

     When you come back, your brain stem and the cells in your body do not know that you are home safe. The brain stem and every cell in the body stays on alert. The wonderful dialogue between one’s thinking brain and one’s emotional brain is short circuited, and the soldier lives his or her life as if he or she is still in combat.

     The horrific events that occur when Johnny comes marching home, a soldier’s inability to live an emotionally connected life upon return, or a soldier’s difficulty "getting over" what he or she had to do to survive is not about a bad or deranged soldier or a soldier who has a weak character. It is about war.

     So I hope with each Memorial Day, we REMEMBER that war is uncivilized and savage. All those soldiers, known and unknown, will have, in fact, died in vane, if we, as a country, don’t strive to become civilized and make war a topic for the history books. Precivilized History.

     Who said such a venture is easy. And, of course, how will we deal with enemies who would prefer that we be wiped off the map? I don’t know the answer to that question. I only believe there is an answer.

     One thing for sure. For countries who engage in war, war become an important part of the economy. Yep. War brings jobs. War makes money. Yes, it is that simple. Civilized folks make money in some other fashion than killing other people. Civilized countries provide jobs doing something other than being a soldier.

     We admire folks like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, and Jesus. Wow, Jesus, of all people. How many folks over the last two thousand years have been killed in the name of Jesus?  Now someone explain that to me. Nice Try!

     So for the next eight days (the octave of Memorial Day), let us remember, it is up to us, to end war. We can begin within the confines of our own family and neighborhood.  Make peace there and the rest will follow.

     Now to switch just a tad.  Today is Tuesday.  I know it feels like Monday, but it is Tuesday.  Isn't that amazing?  THANKS FOR READING.