Every year I think about all those who wore our country's uniform in a time of war without even the opportunity to vote. Black people. Women. And all those who served while hated. Black people. Women. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender people. All who survived came home to a country mostly hostile to their dreams and lives. I want to remember them and memorialize them not because their service mattered more, but because their service was often invisible. Before women were allowed to serve in the military, many did so dressed as men, as far back as the Revolutionary war, and Black people fighting both for and against the colonies is well-documented. The earliest recorded Queer person also fought against the British during the Revolutionary war.
So here's to all who gave their lives the hope of Democracy knowing they would never get their own slice of American Pie.
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"A tip of the hat to the 637,000 who died in the Civil War - though there was little civil about it. And yet, 150 years later, the roots of that conflict - racism, exploitation of human labor, the denial of the common good and the state vs. the federal government - continue to send their poisonous shoots out of the dank earth. We memorialize the war dead but seem not to learn the lesson." ~Loren Niemi
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