May 27, 2025: To Decorate a Grave

VoRR honored Decoration Day, held this year on 5/26, by explaining its true history since it was proclaimed in 1868:  to strew flowers or other decorations on the graves of dead soldiers, NOT to honor veterans or celebrate USA militarism.  Host Barbara told her story of visiting Mark Twain's grave in Elmira, NY, in 2016, decorating his grave with a reading of his 1904 War Prayer, and then traveling to the adjacent National Cemetery to strew the graves of forgotten Confederate soldiers.  Why, you might ask, were Confederate soldiers buried in Elmire NY?  Because there was a POW camp in Elmire, Camp Rathbun, aka Hellmira, to house captured Confederate soldiers.   The conditions at this relatively unknown camp were as brutal as Andersonville; 3,000 of these soldiers died at Hellmira and were buried in a separate section of the Woodlawn National Cemetery Cemetery, far from home and family.  

War is ugly, a failure of humans to reason their way to a solutions.  Is war necessary?  Is there such a thing as Just War, a theory that argues war can be morally justified under specific conditions.  Its alternative, pacifism, that any form of violence, including war, is unacceptable.  

At this time of great peril in the world, when 9 countries possess nuclear weapons and wars, special military operations, and genocide are lived-streamed for all to see, can we justify war?  Isn't it time to put an end to war, or at least USA warring?

Tune in next week when Voices of Reason and Resistance will talk about migration--it's what living entities did before nation state borders got in the way.