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Memorial Day: Remembering is Not Enough
ON MEMORIAL DAY, a grateful nation remembers its war dead, but that somehow gets it backward. Those who have died in America's wars are, more than any other distinct group, the creators of the nation. When citizens go willingly to their deaths for a civic cause, the cause is vindicated - if by nothing else. Public feelings of grief and loss become a source of living cohesion, which is the ground of patriotism. It is fitting that Memorial Day should have taken its place on the American calendar after the Civil War, since it was in that conflict that this principle was first established with power.
The Civil War began, on the northern side, as a war for union, not abolition of slavery. By the second year of the war, the sheer scale of death forced a change in its aim. Shiloh, in April 1862, saw 25,000 casualties. In July, at Bull Run, there were 20,000. Antietam, in September, was the bloodiest day in American history, with 24,000 casualties in 12 hours. A week later, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Yale historian Harry Stout explains why: "By Lincoln's calculation, the killing must continue on ever grander scales. But for that to succeed, the people must be persuaded to shed blood without reservation. This, in turn, required a moral certitude that the killing was just.'' Mere 19th-century nationalism - "Union'' - was not yet enough. For Americans, the "nation'' was becoming sacred, but it was not yet that sacred. "Only emancipation - Lincoln's last card - would provide such certitude,'' Stout writes.
In the end, something like 700,000 Americans died in that war, North and South. An equivalent in population today would approach 7 million. It is much remarked that after the Civil War, and the firm establishment of "Union,'' the "United States'' went from being a plural noun to a singular one, but that transition to the nation we know was accomplished by the dead - who eventually included Lincoln himself.
There are deep strains of the human condition here, something about the way living persons adjust to war's undeniable manifestation of mortality. But the valorizing of the heroes is only half the story. After World War I, Europe became as obsessively attentive to the "fallen'' as the United States had been after its Civil War. The millions of young men who died on the Western Front and other battlefields were not only mourned, but missed. The mantle of international dominance crossed the Atlantic to America in the mid-20th century in part because most of a generation of Old World leaders was cut down in the mud - a continental amputation. A memorial day, in that context, requires remembrance of the world that might have been. Imagine Europe even today if those nearly 10 million - so brave, so selfless - had not been lost.
Indeed, the most fitting tribute that can be paid to those who made the ultimate sacrifice is a full reckoning with what that sacrifice actually cost - not just the fallen and their families, but the larger community that was deprived of the social contributions they would otherwise have made.
Perhaps war's most unsung casualty, in that sense, is the future, which is by definition demeaned by the absence of the heroes. Yet when survivors fill in for those who are gone, they come more fully into responsibility for the commonwealth. The dead create the nation also by being gone.
For all these reasons, remembering is not enough. Beneath the beauty of the lilies lies the ugliness of war. For the act of memorializing to be truly honorable, that harsh reality must be kept central. The human longing for an end to war must be revivified generation in and generation out - not just as a dream, but as a mandate. The waste, futility, and cruelty of war must focus our perceptions of it.
Just because we necessarily make something noble of war, by thinking gratefully of those who served to the point of death, does not remove the indictment of what killed them. War is a crime. Among its victims are its heroes. Yet in the modern era, they have been vastly outnumbered by men, women, and children for whom war was only catastrophic, in no way valorous. Memorial Day belongs to that legion of the dead also.
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Show AllBut, war is a racket used to profit the rich. The Ruling Elite, the ones who benefit most from war, love Memorial Days. The rich can stand up pontificating large about patriotism, freedom, sacrifice, duty, and other noble topics. Yet, it is they, the powerful and rich, who make a mockery of all those noble traits.
The rich and powerful don't give a crap about the people or the veterans, the wounded, the murder of civilians, or the just laws of our country to which they direct or of the resources they waste on war. The rich don't remember the prisoners of war that their government abandoned, yes abandoned, after the peace was signed in Paris. The money, 3.2 billion dollars in reparations, was too dear to the rich rulers of this nation. The sacrifice was not honored then, and it is not honored now. Our P.O.W.'s suffered for decades, then died in ignominious horror, never thought of or cared for by the rich and powerful.
This day represents power, profit, and prestige to their way, not ours who pay the price of war.
Celebrating Memorial Day is playing their game. It is tipping our hat to the rich mans folly. Celebrating today is agreeing that the social contract is but a sham, a one way bargain, a win for the Reaganites, the rich, the powerful, the BP's, and their shills, like Obama.
I am a veteran, but I don't celebrate today. I cry for the waste of opportunity of humankind to have grown from our mistake, our folly, and my participations in the great patriotic shame.
Thanks, DCH. Good comment!
So good that some ignorant, confused, or cowardly and vindictive person "flagged" it.
Maybe this absurd flagging was intended as a traditional Memorial Day gesture, i.e. a way of handing a veteran a flag. ;)
No veteran would accept that "flag" sir. Right the first time. A coward.
Thank you.
To me, you are a patriotic hero.
You are a patriotic hero BECAUSE of your decent, intelligent, accurate viewpoint regarding war and politics. As you wrote, "I cry for the waste of opportunity of humankind to have grown from our mistake," I agree wholeheartedly.
Oh, what a WONDERFUL country America WOULD be if, during the past 50 years, we had spent our taxpayers' money in more "Left-Wing" ways instead of toward war and a military budget that equals ALL other countries COMBINED.
Oh, what a WONDERFUL country America WOULD be if the millions of Americans, fighting in wars since 1960, who were killed and badly wounded (mentally as well as physically) had lived their lives fully, happily, fulfilled.
Again, thank you.
Thank you for your kind words.
While I do not agree with you at all about not honoring the guys that are no longer here, the guys that didn't make it back and those that serve, you as a veteran have earned the right to choose to celebrate it or not.
Other than that difference, what kind of asshole would disagree with the rest? We know its true for the most part.
Shame on the little coward that flagged this honest post. Only a chicken shit of the lowest order would have done this DCH.
I was also thinking the same on the flagging. It must be one of those cowards who still think that soldiers should be left to dry. I have been flagged in the past before myself. CD usually reviews carefully so I think that at the end of the day, they'll unflag the post.
"War is a crime," yes, I do so agree. But those who play it, particularly for others, are murderers, near as I can tell.
No one, absolutely no one, comes out of a war unscathed - neither those with no wounds nor the so-called noncombatants.
Most of the victims of war, I fear, are unaware of the extent of their wounds.
War should never be glorified in anyway, nor honored - it is shameful and a complete failure of humanity. Honor those who have served, but treat those who call for war as criminals of mankind.
"War should never be glorified in anyway, nor honored - it is shameful and a complete failure of humanity. Honor those who have served, but treat those who call for war as criminals of mankind"
I KNOW you are a combat veteran. Bless you and congratulations for making it.
The Civil War was fought for Empire.
Thank you James Carroll for the truth for a change.
It's one thing to remember a war that a soldier has been through but what will matter is how you remember it and how to pass the warnings to future generations. After Vietnam, the war hawks had learned their lessons and devised better ways to keep people from learning the real lessons of Vietnam and even today it is still happening on Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Yet when survivors fill in for those who are gone, they come more fully into responsibility for the commonwealth."
I remember having to do that 9 times in Vietnam when one of my fellow soldiers would get killed but what do politicians care? They can just sit on their cushies and say "Oh we'll send in some more younguns ready to fight for our freedoms" ! Well it doesn't work that way and for every time I found myself having to fill in for a dead soldier, I felt less like a soldier and scared to lose my life.
"For all these reasons, remembering is not enough. Beneath the beauty of the lilies lies the ugliness of war. For the act of memorializing to be truly honorable, that harsh reality must be kept central. The human longing for an end to war must be revivified generation in and generation out - not just as a dream, but as a mandate. The waste, futility, and cruelty of war must focus our perceptions of it."
More than even the soldiers, our best friends and loved ones at home are hurt the most. Additionally, people down the road who could have benefited from these soldiers, dead or severely crippled and unable to perform, are also hurt indirectly. I can never forget those days I used to be a substitute teacher and an independent teacher helping students struggling in computer science and engineering when their professors weren't teaching well. I can also remember the years I helped my company survive and some of those same lessons I had learned from war on responsibility that would keep the company alive without having to resort to desperate measures. I wished I could have learned those lessons without having to go into Vietnam and learn everything the hard way but all I can do is try my best to pass those lessons along while I am still alive and holding on. For those of us soldiers who made it and are trying to pass the good lessons learned, I believe that our friends and loved ones will prefer to remember us for how we lived rather than how we passed away when that moment comes.
We always honor the soldiers but never remember the people who were considered collateral damage. I remember the innocent civilians more than anyone and keepm in mind the elites who start and benefit from these wars.
I can't honor soldiers. They are at best, duped, bribed, and forced to go to war.
Call me an ingrate, but what are they defending me from?
I understand your anger but I cannot fully agree with such shallow remarks on soldiers like that. Both soldiers and civilians need to be remembered and I believe that it is a grave mistake to otherwise remember one and forget the other. Since I take it that you understand that the elites have been using the soldiers as pawns and turning their lives for the worse, the least you could do is show some leniency on the soldiers. Yes, some of them can be assholes but that doesn't mean that we should leave them to dry. It would be like telling unemployed people to get lost when they should be attended to and helped. Efforts should be focused not on blaming and insulting soldiers like that but by working towards building support for reducing the military budgets and separating business from war which is the MIC.
JWVerez
As a Vietnam veteran I certainly agree that those who ended up in war zones [as opposed to chickenhawks like Dick "five deferments, other priorities" Cheney, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay, neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz, Victor Davis Hanson, demagogues like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, et al] should most certainly be remembered. The problem I have is when people start abusing words like honor and hero. As one of my dictionaries states, the word honor connotes "one whose worth brings respect or fame." Since I ended up contributing to the deaths of many innocent Vietnamese people, it then makes no sense at all to me as to why I should be thanked for my service. What i did over there was certainly not heroic. Thanking someone for their military service is a knee jerk response which is totally bereft of logic and critical thinking.
I believe that the people who should be honored are those soldiers who became a part of the GI rebellion during the Vietnam conflict. Their equivalent today would be those people who belong to the IVAW. Unfortunately the chances that they would be honored in the brainwashed media and society that we live in today is about as likely as renaming Memorial Day with a more appropriate name like Lamentation Day as that would mean that people would have to be sorrowful by reflecting on the many needless deaths that have occurred in America's wars and that would include the many innocent civilians who have died in those wars as well as the soldiers who were placed in that most untenable position in the first place.
Why does it have to be an either or situation? I agree with much of what you say and share your feelings of your service as it relates to mine. As well as being a decorated combat vet, I was also a member of Viet Nam Verterans Against the War, demonstrated against the war before and after my service, worked for anti-war political candidates and I feel that all of it was participating in my generation's pivotal event and deserving of some sort of acknowledgement. I don't see a conflict although for those seeing sides they would be hard pressed to put me on one side or the other.
By the fact that I served in the Army in Viet Nam I too was part of the killing that took place there, but so was every American who paid taxes, worked in a military/government related job, took a student deferment, did nothing because they were out of the direct line of fire of getting swept into it, etc. Because I was there, I also know of at least three people who survived a particualr day, and may still be alive today, that would have died if I hadn't been there.
So most of it doesn't make much sense to me except that it seems fitting that if this country's government is going to require service of its men and women than that service should be officially honored, and also that war is a shameful business and there is no honor in it or its execution.
ej
I do not understand your dilemma. Are you saying that all soldiers should somehow be, to use that overused word, honored because they ended up in Vietnam? Why would you think that they should be honored? I hardly believe that military personnel who went along with their orders which entailed illegally occupying another country should be honored for their military service. This is reminiscent of a scene in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir! when a soldier who had returned from Vietnam cautioned other soldiers in a GI coffeehouse that because they may end up as a clerk typist does not get them off the hook from being part of an organization that was attempting to subjugate and slaughter what would eventually become about 3 million people who lost their lives because of the American invasion of their country.
I certainly do not believe that there is any kind of moral equivalency between a soldier who blindly obeyed his orders and those who said NO to American militarism. There is a huge difference between those soldiers of Charlie Company in the Americal Division which ended up killing as many as 500 Vietnamese people, mostly old women and children, in a place called My Lai and Hugh Thompson who ordered his two man crew to shoot at the American soldiers if they shot at him while he went to see if any Vietnamese were still alive in that drainage ditch. Again, even if most of the soldiers in Vietnam did not overtly take part in other atrocities, they were certainly part of an organization which did exactly that.
I will stand in solidarity with the military personnel in Sir! No Sir! and with those who comprised David Cortright's classic work Soldiers In Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War instead of with those who simply thought that they had a job to do over there. As Dave Cline so movingly noted in Sir! No Sir!, he realized, after seeing the North Vietnamese soldier that he had shot dead lying by a tree, that he was simply defending his country against the invading army, i.e. the United States military. That is where my sympathies lay, with the victims instead of with the oppressed.
Because the common American GI was a victim also.
I think there are real villains here and it isn't necessarily the lowly GI. What you say is mostly true, but I don't want to judge those who are the pawns of this whole mess regardless of what side of the conflict they were on.
I remember in basic training on our first Sunday telling my platoon in the large bay that the drill instructors, and the Army in general, had no power over us if we all stood together and simply refused to cooperate. I almost got thrown out the third story window.
I remember telling some ARVN on some remote base near Laos that I didn't want to kill anyone only to be met with courious looks as to how that could be and questions of how I would or could survive. I told them that if I had to I would kill to protect myself and those around me, but I didn't want to. I swear three of those Vietnamese soldiers had tears in their eyes as they all nodded very quietly and slowly in recognition while looking down at their shoes.
I remember giving a talk to a college group about my experience and thoughts about Viet Nam and later being questioned by a young Vietnamese man who couldn't understand my sadness and doubt concerning my part of that war. His whole family had been killed by what he referred to as "the Communists" and we were only there to try and help.
I shot one bullet in Viet Nam on a recon by fire action. After that, because I carried the radio, I always pretended to talk on the radio when people were shooting. One night when we were over run on our fire base I had to guard one of the entrances to the TOC and was fully prepared to shoot any VC who tried to enter.
Does any of this absolve me from taking my responsiblity for my part of the war, or make me more of a victim and not as guilty as others? I don't know the answers to any of it.
I don't have any answers, mostly it is confusing to me, but this I know - I won't judge the victims of war regardless of what side of the conflict they're on.
My Government sent me there, and in spite of the shame, confusion, and sadness of it all, I want my government to honor my and all soldiers' service because that's the least they deserve. I take my responsibility for my part of my and other wars, but I don't want, nor do I deserve, to be blamed for something I'm more of victim of than anything else. Even stupid, sad, criminal Calley was a victim.
I have great affection and sympathy for soldiers and veterans while not really liking or respecting the military or its mindset. Maybe it's a contradiction, but there it is - so much of life is a contradiction.
I'm not saying we should "leave them to dry" or anything like that. We have to rehabilitate them of course. I'm just sick of them being put onto pedestals. "Heroes" they are not.
"Since I take it that you understand that the elites have been using the soldiers as pawns and turning their lives for the worse, the least you could do is show some leniency on the soldiers. Yes, some of them can be assholes but that doesn't mean that we should leave them to dry. It would be like telling unemployed people to get lost when they should be attended to and helped. Efforts should be focused not on blaming and insulting soldiers like that but by working towards building support for reducing the military budgets and separating business from war which is the MIC."
I can't disagree with you on that JWVerez. I just think lionizing the solidiers feeds into the very thing you and me want to dismantle. I will never demonize them, but I can't view them as angels either. People aren't enlisting because of anything altruistic.
Thanks for clarifying. I think we have plenty of agreement on what you said. Happy Memorial Day and it should include remembering both the soldiers and civilians not to mention our wildlife who died for oil if BP is any indication and workers who died or still working as slaves here and around the world thanks to the capitalist system that is killing all of us except the very well to do.
"People aren't enlisting because of anything altruistic."
Some are, but that's beside the point.
I fought in Viet Nam, not because I was patriotic, but because it was the least of the evils facing me - the others being prison or banishment to another country. But that's besides the point.
I had plenty of uncles who fought in WWII and some of them were not shining examples of the ideals of this country, but that's besides the point too.
I'm not sure what the point is, but I think it has to do with something like this.
Regardless of the politics or one's own desires some have put themselves on the line for something greater than themselves - usually nothing more than the safeguarding of those around them. Because we are talking about soldiers and their situations were due to their country's wishes, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of those wishes, they deserve to be honored.
It's not about heroes or angels, demonizing or lionizing, it's about recognizing the basic human ideal of committing and sacrificing one's self for something greater.
ej-You were drafted into 'Nam. So was my father. That's what I meant when I said that soldiers are forced into combat.
"It's not about heroes or angels, demonizing or lionizing, it's about recognizing the basic human ideal of committing and sacrificing one's self for something greater."
What is that "greater" thing? The military/industrial complex? Why does "committing and sacrificing" have to involve so much bloodshed?
Most soldiers, where the rubber hits the highway, aren't fighting for anything more abstract than just trying to get through the "sh*t" alive along with the guys next to them.
So, in this case, the "greater" thing is doing one's job because others are counting on you doing it.
Now that "greater" might can change depending on who is doing the talking. A politician may reference that greater thing as a soldier's love for their country, or to insure freedom for the oppressed people of ______, or some such other thing. A soldier, in the cool of non action may also mouth such words, but not when things get hot.
The bloodshed part, believe me, is really not a soldier's choice. Most soldiers I knew didn't want anything to do with bloodshed. When soldier's who have gone through combat gather and talk amongst themselves, often phrases like, "why don't we all just go home" or "I have nothing against that guy shooting at me and I would rather not shoot at him" are heard. For most soldiers it really does come down to getting out of the fix alive and the way to do that is for everyone to do their jobs as best they can.
Politicians can't really use that to their ends, movie makers can't really sell their product portraying that, and history books can't fit that into their agendas because then all soldiers from all nations would look too similar.
So that "greater" thing becomes something else depending on who's doing the talking and citizen are mostly confused because they aren't getting a clear picture of the realty of all of this. I had talked to my WWII veteran uncles who mostly believed in the necessity of what they were doing, but when the horrors of war were happening it was usually because they were just trying to stay alive. I'm sure that's the way it is for almost every soldier from probably every nation throughout all time.
JC is 100% correct - remembering is not enough.
That's why I hit the mall for the Memorial Day mattress sale and picked up a cheap Serta. For the troops, I mean...
...
Ya did GW proud.
"War is hell," as General William Tecumseh Sherman reminded us, which does make me wonder why it has always seemed so easy to talk men into going to hell, at least for so long as those who do the fighting and dying have had some choice in the matter. Why war? Particularly when a people do not face a realistic threat of invasion, as Americans have not since long before the end of the second world war. We'd rather not acknowledge that barbarism is an integral part of the human psyche, of ourselves, but I think doing so would go a long way toward answering my question. What do you think?
Strip away all the window dressing about the glory, nobility and necessity of the enterprise, and war is nothing more than organized murder. War is nothing more than organized murder, I repeat, which must demand of us all that we be god damned sure that any given war proposed to us by our rulers is absolutely necessary, unavoidable without question, before we allow it to be launched. On this, the penultimate question we, the people, ever face, we Americans have failed to answer correctly again and again and again.
All of this leaves me on the horns of a dilemma, because I hate war and particularly hate our wars since I see them as illegitimate and know I can never wash the blood of shared responsibility off my hands--yet I unequivocably support our troops.
If truth is in fact the "first casualty of war," then the combatants themselves are surely the second. They are the immediate victims of our own failure to "keep them out of harms way," whether the cause be just or unjust (which question they have absolutely no say in), and they therefore deserve every consideration and the most attentive care we can possibly provide them to help them heal in body, mind and soul. We owe them that and more, at a bare minimum, as well as the honor we extend on this Memorial Day to those who "gave the last full measure of devotion," whether in their own minds they made that sacrifice for their country, their mission, their brothers in arms, or their next paycheck hardly matters. They did it for us. That's what matters.
The Defense Department's Memorial Day List Of American military personnel killed last week in Iraq and Afghanistan. The names of Iraqis and Afghans killed by U.S. military personnel were ommitted.
Christopher R. Barton, 22, of Concord, N.C., private first class; Philip P. Clark, 19, of Gainesville, Fla., lance corporal, Marine Corps; Ronald W. Culver, Jr., 44, of Shrevesport, La., Major, Army National Guard; Jason D. Fingar, 24, of Colombia, Mo., private first class, Army; Amilcar H. Gonzalez, 26, of Miami, staff sergeant, Army; Jacob C. Leicht, 24, of College Station, Texas, corporal, Marine Corps; Edwin Rivera, 28, of Waterford, Conn., sergeant, Army; Stanley J. Sokolowski III, 26, of Ocean, N.J., specialist, Army
What did they die for? Depends on whether those of us left behind find a way, not only to end these wars, but see to it that there are no wars no more, nowhere, never, not even one. If we succeed in this task, that's what they'll have died for, for which humankind will forever be grateful Otherwise, since war serves no purpose other than glorifying murder and destruction, sorry to say so, but, yes, no escaping it, they'll have died in vain. Which puts there ultimate fate in our hands, doesn't it?
I met a Mennonite in PA., shook his hand and told him I appreciated his religion's refusal to do war.
He replied plainly, "Thou shall not kill."
This is honorable.
The tone of this essay starts off with admiration for those who follow orders and fight and die in wars. Later, the tone changes, and the author offers us this thought:
"War is a crime. Among its victims are its heroes."
The first statement is true. However, the second statement cannot be true if the first statement is true.
If war is a crime, then there can be no heroes in a war. The author has written a confused essay. He wants to have it both ways, or he thinks maybe that some wars are good wars.
Was the union really that important? No, it wasn't. How about emancipation? Well, the author acknowledges that emancipation wasn't the reason for the Civil War.
The current wars of the United States are wars of aggression. There is no defense of country involved. Let's be clear about that. There are no heroes out there, dead or alive. There is only senseless killing, or killing to protect oil routes.
That's what you should think about on Memorial Day. Don't get sentimental about it. Get mad. Demand that your government stop the killing. Tell your gung-ho brother who wants to enlist not to join the madness. There is no honor in military service because it is a projection force of empire, and not defensive at all.
-TIA
I find it difficult to disagree with anything you say, but I fear you take it into a too "black and white" conclusion that just doesn't do justice to humanity.
Memorial Day claims of honoring the uniform or the flag or heroes is just so much posturing by individuals serving an agenda of one sort or another by coloring and framing the dialogue to serve their own ends.
I've never thought of Memorial Day in the same way our politicians do. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the "mission," I always felt that what I was honoring was each individual's basic humanity of a willingness to stand up and sacrifice through service for something greater than themselves.
I'm unable to pick apart the reasons why one chooses to serve or whether the need for that service is approvable before I decide whether that service should be honored.
I believe all wars are shameful, and a failure of humanity, and a "crime" against humanity, but I don't believe that all soldiers are "criminals" and most are victims of the human folly that results in war. With that, I still believe it is possible to separate all of that from individuals' willingness to serve and sacrifice and that is what I honor.
Don't honor sacrifice. The Aztecs had that, and so did the Mayans. It was ritualistic, bloody and senseless. Here in the United States, there is simply no reason for anyone to "put themselves in harm's way" since the United States isn't being attacked.
I take nothing away from someone who wants to learn the technologies of war to defend the United States - at home. However, I don't think they are doing anything more noble than the neighborhood fireman or the trash collector or the cashier in the convenience store. However, today there should be no illusions about what the U.S. military stands for, and that's oil wars.
If that's all too black and white for you, sorry, but it's reality, and it's better to know that than find yourself in a desert shooting someone different than you. Don't get sentimental about this stuff. Read General Smedley Butler's short book, "War Is a Racket." I highly recommend it.
-TIA
I've read it. I'm not unaware of the forces upon us.
Workers are honored - it's called Labor Day regardless of what one's job is.
Don't confuse the politics of the mission, or the legal or moral questonability of our nation's actions with the service or sacrifice of America's soldiers.
This nation's people made that mistake during the Viet Nam War and ended up blaming the lowly GI for the war. Let's not make that misguided mistake again.
As much as I hate to admit it and wish it were another way, a standing and prepared military is necessary and if we are ever attacked again we all will be grateful for that military. It is unwise and maybe a bit cruel to then turn around and hold those soldiers accountable for how our government uses them.
Honor the veteran while working to end all wars and to get our country on the correct side of events and ultimately history.
You write:
"Don't confuse the politics of the mission, or the legal or moral questonability of our nation's actions with the service or sacrifice of America's soldiers."
But the politics of the mission and its morality and international law are intertwined. Remember, it was the United States that backed the judgments at the Nuremberg Court. Nazis were hung for following orders after conducting "preventive war." The United States conducted preventive war in Iraq, and arguably aggressive war in Pakistan. Since Afghanistan is incapable of attacking the United States (no navy or ICBMs), I'd call the current war there aggressive too. All U.S. soldiers following orders in these regions are committing war crimes since the United States was not attacked by those countries.
It's you who are confused here.
Regarding the blame the Vietnam war GI story, what you cite is a myth. It was developed in the Rambo movies. The troops themselves organized against the Vietnam war (see the documentary, "Sir, No Sir!") and got support from the civilian community for doing so.
On your point about "standing armies," that's an unfortunate phrase. George Washington (yes, the guy on the $1 bill) opposed standing armies because of the potential for domestic tyranny. This is an American tradition broken with Northcom, which now oversees domestic incidents as if it were a civilian police force (except trained to kill with the latest technologies). No, "standing armies" is the wrong thing to argue if you honor American traditions.
Your logic on cruelty doesn't make any sense. If you want to "end all wars," then you certainly would throw these guys out of a military service job. And that's how it should be. There's nothing cruel about advocating for peace. What's cruel is dishonesty about the missions these guys are on. You don't do them any favors by asking them to be honored for the work of occupation and empire. You disgrace them by asking them to maintain such a compromised position. Ask only that they return home. If they're gung ho abroad, they don't represent the interests of the American people.
The troops are not dumb brutes divorced of will. When your country does wrong, you should not fall in line. I recognize that they are under pressure to conform and continue to violate international laws, but they can also resist. In the present case of three-front wars of aggression, resistance is the only true patriotism.
I think you must have missed the point in Smedley Butler's book. He said it better than I can.
-TIA
We shouldn't honor them, but we need to help them, rehabilitate them.
I never met a soldier who actually saw combat that bragged about it.