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Comments

• [1] Katie from Forest Hills May 27, 2008 - 10:32AM

  I feel a connection to the person and send a prayer for them in the afterlife to be happy.

  I think this is subjective how people will feel. Depends on your religion and your views about heaven, reincarnation and what you believe happens in the next life after this one. Are you an existentialist or Jewish or Buddhist, Christian, Wiccan?

  It all depends. I sound like a lawyer already!

  
  
• [2] David! from NYC May 27, 2008 - 10:49AM

  Katie,

  It's those naughty websites you've been going to that makes you sound like a lawyer! :-)

  
  
• [3] a woman from manhattan May 27, 2008 - 10:54AM

  I find all memorials depressing because they only represent one side of a war rather than war itself. We should be grieving not just for our own dead, but for all the dead involved in each war we memorialize. When our enemy dies in a war, he also dies for our cause, since we are the winners. Our fellow humans die in every war we engage in, and it's a sad fact of human nature that we must kill each other.

  I would like there to be a memorial or a memorial day for ALL the fallen, on all sides of all wars so that we can remind ourselves what a human price in blood and pain we all incur for the things many we believe or need.

  
  
• [4] Justin from Brooklyn May 27, 2008 - 10:55AM

  Monuments should be an active part of the landscape and experience so that as generations move on the monuments can continue to contribute to the people as opposed to just one forced experience for one generation.

  
  
• [5] Joe Corrao from Brooklyn May 27, 2008 - 10:56AM

  I love spreading freedom

  
  
• [6] Judith Kozloff from New York/London May 27, 2008 - 10:56AM

  the Lutyens memorial is in Ypres (Belgium). The Belgians still have a nightly memorial service including Taps, but all the WW I and II in Europe cementries are maintained beautifully.

  
  
• [7] Theresa May 27, 2008 - 11:02AM

  My favorite traditional memorial is the 54th Massachussetts memorial in Boston by Augustus St. Gaudens-- the memorial to the now-famous black regiment depicted in the film "Glory." St. Gaudens made each face of each marching soldier individual and distinct.

  
  
• [8] hjs from 11211 May 27, 2008 - 11:07AM

  one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist

  
  
• [9] caroline from new york city May 27, 2008 - 11:17AM

  i think this quote by Robert McNamara from the Errol Morris documentary "The Fog of War" sums up the comment by hjs.

  "LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win? "

  
  
• [10] hjs from 11211 May 27, 2008 - 11:23AM

  caroline

  thanks for the info

  
  
• [11] Jon P. from Hewitt, NJ May 27, 2008 - 11:52AM

  Caroline,

  it depends on the fight. If we had lost WW 2, Germany and Japan would have made slaves out of us like they did the Chinese and Jews who where made slaves and eventually executed. We had to win that one no matter the cost. Otherwise you’d be speaking Japanese or German right now and be somebody’s property.

  
  
• [12] eva May 27, 2008 - 11:56AM

  At yesterday's memorial service in the Presidio, I started crying during the "military theme medley", not just because the music was played so well, but because I realized that I and most of my friends couldn't distinguish the separate musical themes for each of the armed forces. Bizarrely, my only connection to those musical themes is through the three o'clock movie on Channel 2, which would occasionally play old war movies. It was pretty unsettling. And it just seemed to underscore what a disconnected and two-tiered society we've become - many of my friends who are now serving just didn't have the money for college - nor the financial/school advisors to guide them through the loan process.

  
  
• [13] eva May 27, 2008 - 11:59AM

  There was also a tribute to Tom Lantos in the Presidio yesterday, but it was too short. It was a very casual gathering, with Iraq veterans mostly in jeans. It's supposed to be one of the best-attended memorial services, but attendance seemed very thin, and most of the cyclists I passed on the way to the cemetary were headed not to the memorial, but out across the bridge for a leisurely 30 to 50 mile ride. It's just that once you eliminate the draft, nobody thinks they're invested. I'd asked one cyclist who was headed the opposite direction which turn I should make to the cemetary, and she'd responded with total wonder, "you mean the pet cemetary?" Memorial Day AND the war is just not part of anyone's consciousness, which is emblematic of how disengaged we are in this effort. We weren't even asked to conserve fuel, and so most of us didn't.