I would like us to honor our troops today by committing ourselves to not throwing away their lives and families on unnecessary foreign wars.
I would also like us to honor our troops today by actually supporting them when they return: by adequately funding and staffing VHA services and hospitals, and by helping them get education and find jobs when they return. One veteran commits suicide every 65 minutes for an overall veteran suicide rate that is about double that of the general population (see 2014 report).
If you’re a veteran struggling with thoughts of suicide, please follow this link for resources that can help you.
I think Charlie Chaplain’s The Great Dictator is an appropriate film to consider at the moment. Soldiers are the first victims of war.
And let us never forget the Republican Party, which believes America has $820 billion to spend on an unnecessary war in Iraq, $1.5 trillion on a plane that won’t fly, but not $21 billion to spend on supporting our veterans — even when it’s just reallocated, unspent money from US troop withdrawals. The GOP supports defense spending not to support our troops, and not to support national defense, but only for the sake of supporting defense contractor profits.
Don’t forget that G.W. Bush admitted that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The Philosophy of Contemporary Song 