LTTE From the Democracy For Missouri Prez

I recall Memorial Days in my youth: a parade down Main Street to the Memorial Library, where solemn and patriotic speeches were made over the lawn covered with neat rows of white wooden crosses, followed by a 21-gun salute by the VFW - men who just 15 years before had freed the world from tyranny.

Sweet memories. So what have we today?

The Columbia Memorial Day Fly-in I attended bears little resemblance to a sincere memorial of war dead. This year’s headlined 10,000-square-foot "Virtual Army Experience" attracted participants lined up as if they were at Disneyland, to play soldier on widescreen video screens with a climax of realistic explosions. (No cries of the dead and wounded, no screams of women and children - just "Shock and Awe" explosions.)

When did war become a game?

When did Memorial Day become an obscene military recruitment tool?

As a member of Democracy for Missouri, I was present outside the VAE, helping to hand out more than 200 American Friends Service Committee DVDs on the truth about enlistment and military service. We are told that once inside, uniformed VAE personnel offered to break the discs. I pray that those who held onto their DVDs will watch and share them. Democracy breathes truth.

The "Fly-in" as organized was very poorly attended, and there were few old planes in evidence - just recruitment "rides." My hope is that organizers will have an epiphany about the true meaning of Memorial Day and stop glorying in weaponry and destruction.

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Bill Monroe

505 E. 10th St.

Fulton