Always a Racket

A friend sent me a link to "War is a Racket!  Has Anything Changed?" which is an updated play on General Smedley Butler's classic truth about war.  On this Memorial Day weekend, it is a truth that should be well remembered, although in modern America we seem to have become very comfortable with that racket to our own economic and societal detriment.  Most readers of this humble blog no doubt already know this truth but I pass it along for you to keep in mind.  Maybe you will have an opportunity to share it with someone less aware than yourself.

Not only is war a racket, it is an enduring racket.  I came across that truth is in a review of  War Time:  An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences by Mary Dudziak.in The Nation.  What really brought the message home to me was this quote:

In almost every year of the last century, American soldiers served in a conflict that qualified for a combat medal. The military criteria for wartime, Dudziak notes, “swallow much of American history.” (emphasis added.)

And so far in the 21st century, American soldiers have been eligible for a combat medal.  Makes me think that the America's oft-recited pledge should read more like,   

I pledge allegiance
To the United States of America
One Nation at war,
Then, now and well into the future.