Publisher’s Note: Work, travel, and vehicle troubles kept us from posting much this week, as we here at TPOL were afraid might happen. But with travel behind us for at least a few weeks, and keeping a good handle on work that pays us! Yea!, we expect to return to a regular schedule. Or something close.

The disgusting nature of worship of the military is at fever pitch this week, culminating on Saturday, 11 November 2023. After today, hopefully it will settle down to a slow simmer. And it will be easier to stomach. The company most of us here at TPOL work for uses the US Army ACU (Army Combat Uniform) as our field uniform for doing testing: the US Army tape is replaced by a WASTELINE tape, but the safety features of the uniform and its gear serve well when in the field whether doing air sampling or soil testing or dealing with stormwater and reclamation and other things. But people seldom bother to read the name tapes or look at the insignia on our shoulders carefully – or assume that the blue and white shield is some military unit. So this time of year we get, frankly, fawned on. As a veteran, I find it disturbing. My sons, as sons of a veteran, find it even more so. And as a veteran whose active and reserve duty included the post-Vietnam era, I find it weird and unsettling. As a historian (as well as an engineer) I know that such military worship can turn quickly into contempt, abuse, and hatred for the “baby-killers” and “earth-rapers.” Especially in the 21st Century.

Today, of course, is Armistice Day – retitled Veterans Day by the FedGov and States. Still called Armistice Day in the Commonwealth, as we assume readers know, it remembers the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when the guns, at least on the Western Front, of the Great War fell silent.

It wasn’t a victory. It wasn’t the end of war, despite the propaganda of “the war to end all wars” and the mindless drivel of Liberals, Labor, and Conservatives in the British Realms and of Democrats and Republicans in the States and DC. Indeed, though some fighting of the Great War had already ended in various places, fighting would continue for years: the horrors of the Russian October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. The socialist/communists Spartacus and other uprisings and coups in Germany. The continued bloodletting (not graced with the name of “war”) in the Balkans, newly-independent Poland and other nation-states, and colonial wars and interventions and worse. And of course, the end of the Great War was in reality just a 21-year-long pause in the Great European War, picking up again in September of 1939 and contributing to probably the most bloody century in human history.

But the butcher’s bill and other parts of the death toll for four years (just a bit more than a year for the US) encouraged the Western powers to continue the wartime propaganda scheme and present it as victory. After the major fruit of that fake victory, of course, WW2, here in the States it was renamed Veterans Day. Honored by “Thank you for your service” and free or reduced food and merchandise, parades, and beaucoup emails, radio, and internet tributes.

Excuse me while I rinse my mouth out again.

Should we respect and honor veterans – especially veterans of combat? Of course, at the same time as we remember how they (we) were cozened into putting our lives and limbs and sanity on the line for outright lies and to promote the power and wealth of parasites who do not value the freedom and liberty of anyone except themselves (and maybe family). Who are willing to not just lie but come up with ways to jump-start hostilities to get their way.

Those who were (and are, around the world) drafted, and those of us who volunteered first were abused by the lies we were told about why we were going to serve. Often told by people who were repeating what they were told, not realizing they were lies. We must remember that the great majority of veterans, especially of combat veterans, both here in the States and elsewhere, thought that they were fighting for homes and family and friends, for liberty and freedom at home and abroad. Their service was and is honorable. It is the civilian leaders and the brass hats at the top of the command chain that are truly guilty of the evils of war and all associated.

(Yes, there are lower-ranking military personnel who individually committed nasty and vicious and immoral actions against other warriors and civilians, but the bulk of men and women who served did not – and did not participate in covering up such.)

But no man, no woman, is entitled to worship – in whatever small degree – for “going off to war” or especially serving in peacetime or in positions with little or no exposure to harm. And yet we see this more and more. Even while fewer and fewer are willing to and have served.

And at the same time we see the degradation imposed on the memories of so many Americans who died and were wounded – or led troops – in the past. I, of course, refer to the renaming of Army posts (and streets and buildings and more) to remove the names of “evil” canceled Confederate States Army soldiers and leaders, formally concluded just two weeks ago with “re-branding” Fort Gordon, Georgia to Fort Eisenhower. CSA soldiers, CSN sailors, CSMC Marines all deserve the same degree of respect and honor as any other American veteran or victim of war – as do the veteran AmerInd warriors who fought for their people and homeland, both against other AmerInd tribes or against the US and aggression by settlers and companies. To do otherwise is rank hypocrisy.

And above all, remember that worship can quickly become cancelation in 2023 and beyond.