Steve McGrath
Aug 25, 2017 · 1 min read

It is the soldiers we honor, not the wars, the causes, the military or the oligarchs that lead them to their death. We honor their sacrifice and that of their fathers and their mothers, their brothers and their sisters, their sons and their daughters, their forlorn spouse and whoever else has had their heart drained from their loss.

The flag draped over the casket serves only as a marker that tells us; herein lies a soldier who died while serving their country. We do not need to know the where, the why, or the how of their demise. We do not make war upon the dead soldiers nor bear animosity toward them.

You can call it a fetish. I call it respect.

“..wherever on this broad earth there exist a people who will encourage their
manhood of any and all ages to go out and battle for a cause and then will permit those who gave their lives in sacrifice to that cause to lie in unmarked-sepulchers and the memory of them to die out, they are a people regarding whom I have no power of expression with which to convey to you the measure of scorn and contempt I feel therefor”. — Remarks by Corporal James Tanner, Former Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, delivered at a ceremony honoring the dead soldiers of the Confederate interred at Arlington National Cemetery, 1912

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    Steve McGrath

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    Mammalian; rounded braincase; thick skull balanced on a vertical backbone