A Memorial Day Salute to the Troops from The Dollar Vigilante

[The following post is by TDV Chief-Editor, Jeff Berwick]

On this Memorial Day let's remember all those who have served.

The people who work in restaurant kitchens, the waiters who serve the food, the Uber drivers, the hotel maids, the entrepreneurs who have created billions of products and services, the store managers who work hard to get you whatever product you desire at the lowest price they can.  The mothers and fathers who work hard to provide a safe environment for their children.

All those who morally put in a productive day of work serving others in voluntary trade.

What about the troops?  In the US?  Well, they don't fit that description in many cases, unfortunately. All too often, service in the US armed forces results in death on either side.  Destroyed lives, destroyed families.  On this day, I remember all who have died as the result of US military action, on both sides. In particular, on the US side, those who were well-meaning but had been misled by superiors.  And in particular those who were conscripted in the “Land of the Free” and sent off to be mutilated or murdered for nothing and do the same to others.

There are indeed some “troops” who may possibly be heroes, depending on the situation.  They are the “troops” fighting off foreign invasion of their own homes.

There are the ones who  died protecting their home from violent attack.  They sacrificed their life to protect their community, family and property against those who wanted to take it or destroy it.  Many of those “troops” are in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya which have been under attack for years, and in some cases decades, by an outside invading terrorist organization.  If all they are doing is defending themselves and their homes from attack and doing so not because they are told to do so by some authority but because it is their right then we can support those “troops”… or at the very least feel very, very sad for their plight.

But the US troops?   Some people who, knowingly or not, sold their souls to the military industrial complex to abet chaos and murder around the world?  This makes it hard for me to remember positively those who died while serving…There is nothing heroic about being an order follower to evil people carrying out acts of murder on others.

Even worse, all military in the US are on welfare.  The only difference between people on regular welfare and those in the military is that in the military instead of lying around all day watching TV you go for jogs, fire guns and, in many cases, murder people.

The last people who should be supported and embraced are the “war boys” who have given up their soul to work for big corporations and impose their will by force… and love doing it.  Love the sight of dead brown people; love the sound of “bombs bursting in air.”  There are sick people in the US military, and they should be absolutely reviled. Not celebrated.  Dead or alive.

Even many in the military know this.  Many join because they are told by a lifetime of “Pledges of Allegiance” in the government indoctrination camps and television programming and US military paid-for half-time shows that they are doing something noble when they join.

Many soon find out that they sold their soul and that shows up in the epidemic amount of suicides in the US military which amounted to more deaths by suicide than by war for American soldiers in the last few years.  I mourn their deaths on this day and hope that others realize this now and don't go down that same dark path.

For those that realize they are involved in an evil enterprise we'd like to let them know there is hope.  If they've  now realized they are the bad guys and are propagating heinous criminal acts worldwide via the US military there is a chance for salvation.

Quit the US military.  And any other military that does anything but defend its own area from aggressive, foreign attack.

Memorial Day is about remembrance of those who passed while at war.  So, on this day, let us all remember that government and central bank backed aggressive military action and war is evil and the world will not become a better place until we do remember that.

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