Thanks for the thought provoking words. I am reminded of something George Washington also said," any country which harbors habitual fondness or habitual hatred to another is a slave either to its' animosity or to its' generosity both which serve to deviate itself from its' original purpose which is itself."

Yes...It would seem that it is Governments the fight other Governments...but the populous takes the brunt of it and pays the price.

"--you fight for your government."
Shortly after me dino was drafted during 1969, a drill instructor proclaimed that we needed to fight in Vietnam to keep them from raping our mothers, sisters and wives.
First thought I had? "How the hell are they going to get over here?"
Fortunately for me dino, I was assigned to be a supply clerk and never had to go stop that big scary rapist invasion from coming over.

Biden will get us into a war in order to hide his obvious failure as a president. Leftists want their ideology ONLY at any price. They dont care the results of their ideas, but just that the ideas are accepted.

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021...
The website of Australian journalist Michael Smith-

US memorial day.
Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States to honor and mourn military personnel who died in the performance of their military duties while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The holiday is observed on the last Monday of May.

Many people visit cemeteries and memorials on Memorial Day to honor and mourn those who died while serving in the U.S. Military. Many volunteers place an American flag on graves of military personnel in national cemeteries.
Harris says 'enjoy the long weekend'.

I saw this to some degree in Cyprus. For those not familiar with this tiny island nation, Cyprus used to be home to the ultimate Mediterranean vacation destination: Kyrenia. Here were some of the foremost beaches in the Mediterranean as well as the sun to go with them. That all changed when the Greek government was taken over by a coup in the early 1970's. Relations between Turkey and Greece were never warm - perhaps due to the Ottoman Empire's occupation and systematic destruction of Greece for hundreds of years - but the Turks feared the ethnic cleansing that these hard-liners would bring to the island's citizens. And so the Turks secretly sought out the British and Americans and arranged to invade the island. The three nations drew up an occupation zone for the northern 30% of Cyprus - including Kyrenia but also including most of the arable land on the island - where the majority of Turkish-affiliated citizens lived. And in 1974, the Turks invaded and occupied that land.

A "Green Line" now separates Cyprus into the Greek-affiliated southern region which straddles the capital city of Nicosia (Leucosia) and is manned by UN stations. (When I was there, the UN contingents were from Austria and Brazil.) Anyone in the Green Zone is in violation of the terms of the cease-fire, but given that neither side really patrols, there are frequent incursions percussively noted by the occasional mine detonation. (Livestock were frequent casualties and the area where I walked dogs for a humanitarian agency constantly reeked with the decay of dead goats.)

It was (tragically) interesting to visit the respective holocaust museums on either side of the Green Line there in Nicosia. (There is a formal border crossing for those wishing to go to the Northern Side and the Greek Cypriots give you dirty looks while the Turkish love you for the cash you will inevitably blow on cheap gold and knockoff clothes.) The museum on the Greek side highlights in graphic detail the villages which were utterly destroyed and all inhabitants murdered by the Turkish army in the North. The museum on the Turkish side highlights - again in photographic detail - the same types of genocidal atrocities committed by the Greek army.

The interesting note, however, came in conversations with citizens who were forced to live on one side or the other. One Greek man talked about how some of his best friends growing up in those northern villages were Turks. A Turkish man I talked to on the Northern side said similar things about his Greek friends prior to the 1974 partitioning. (He even gave me a couple of items from his shop that I have to this day despite Greek customs.)

All in all, it is a particularly tragic tale of government at its worst engaging in tit-for-tat nationalistic violence, which according to the actual residents I talked to was all perpetrated by outraged militaries at the expense of the civilian populations who were just fine living together.

One last note: Not many know this, but the issue of the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus has never been diplomatically resolved. Cyprus remains in a perpetual state of war similar to the armistice on the Korean peninsula, but with far less interested opponents. That might have something to do with the military base maintained by England on the southern shores of Cyprus which is actually Crown land they never ceded when Cyprus was granted its independence in 1960.

The only thing I am going to fight for at this point is my own safety, and I will decide when and how that will be done.

Every Memorial Day I post a tribute to the Merchant Marines on FaceBook because friends and family use that social media. My father was a merchant mariner from 1942 to1946 starting as a Kings Point Cadet to Chief Engineer. He survived the war and became a maritime service engineer. But that's history. I do agree with both essays (the Monster one) although how is the USA and other nations going to handle the Chinese gov't who wants to take ownership of the pacific basin by force? They have a million-man army ready to go.