Soldiers fight to expand the sphere of influence of their respective governments. Lofty sounding words like “freedom” and “liberty” make the pill easier to swallow for the people that are going to do the bleeding and those who will be left to mourn their deaths at a later date. But never convince yourself or let any others convince you that the military exists to “protect your liberty and freedom”. It exists to do the will of Washington, D.C. on Earth. Memorial Day is a great day to remember those who gave their lives for this dubious cause but it is also the perfect day to remember that for every soldier killed there was a multitude of civilians left dead, maimed or homeless. That was what I tried to keep in mind as I ate my fried chicken and watermelon with Old Glory flapping in the wind.

As Leo Tolstoy once said,

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

As of today 1,661 of our men and women have died in Iraq.

But do you really think that it is our freedom and liberty that they are fighting and dying for?