The Post Yardwork and Barbecue Thoughtful Memorial Day Edition

Kurt Vonnegut had much to say about war and soldiers in Slaughterhouse-Five, but I was particularly struck by the following exchange in Happy Birthday, Wanda June between the long-presumed-dead Harold Ryan and his sidekick Colonel Looseleaf Harper (who is described in the play as the man who dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki):

LOOSELEAF: Anybody who'd drop an atom bomb on a city has to be pretty dumb.

HAROLD: The one direct, decisive, intelligent act of your life!

LOOSELEAF: [Shaking his head] I don't think so.

[Pause}

It could have been.

HAROLD: If what?

LOOSELEAF: If I hadn't done it. If I'd said to myself, "Screw it. I'm going to let all those people down there live."

We ask our soldiers to make life and death decisions every day, and we ask them to sacrifice themselves to safeguard our "freedom" and "democracy." How can we expect them to know when and how to do what's right? How can we ask them to trust their commanders in the field when we can't trust our leaders at home? And how can we expect them to live with the consequences of their actions? How can we live with ourselves?

This one's dedicated to my father and my father-in-law, both veterans of World War II who chose not to talk about their experiences during their lifetimes. I regret that I didn't challenge their decisions. I have a lot of questions.