Eugene Pioneer Cemetery, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Thinking about the President's wanton tweeting and the ever more troubling thought that our President may fails to appreciate the enormous toll any war incurs I found myself wandering through the cemetery on campus.
We've become more removed from war as a society than previous generations. Today only a small fraction of people ever serve in the armed forces. It is not inconceivable to think there are people in America who have no close friends or family members who have served. Assuredly, this is because we are in a time of unprecedented peace. Violence seems to strike fear into our hearts in a way that is new yet on the whole violence is a far cry from what it was in the lives of our parents and theirs before them. A walk through any American cemetery will quickly remind us of that. Among the pioneers yearning for opportunity in the frontier, their families following the tales of abundance that lay west, are scores of dead veterans. From the Civil War on, head stones can be found denoting various infantry units, cavalry units, dates of service, etc. It was once impossible to separate one's self from the horrors of warfare. Yet today we fly sorties in the Middle East from air-conditioned office buildings in the Southwest, our combat needn't our presence nor our casualties; to many this means war comes without cost but the reality is that we're simply incurring debt we haven't even begun to pay off.