How to Observe Memorial Day?

To quote Cadet Bone Spurs, "HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY." (?!?!?)

What? The occasion of needing to remember people fallen in lots of wars does not sound "Happy" to you?

And making fun of anyone over a physical problem out of their control sounds, oh, maybe a little ableist,?

Okay! Start here.

Memorial Day Meditation: the start

Now, we will attempt to pivot, with at least some minimum level of elegance and respectfulness and acknowledgment that more elegance might be achieved if RantWoman were to time her efforts to intersect with editing before actual dates of interest.

First pivot point:

Imagine the sort of argument that goes something like this:

--You have me to thank that you have all that freedom to refer to the President as (all those different things that rattle off your keyboard).

--Okay and I am out there protesting because maybe sometimes the protesting keeps you from getting sent off in every stupid direction the President wants to send.. That still does not make almost two decades of ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan a "happy" situation. And please excuse me if Cadet Bone Spurs claiming to be a "wartime president" because of the Corona Virus after gutting the budget of the CDC sounds to RantWoman just a little too much like Stalin purging his military in the years leading up to WWII.

--But, but...

--Look how about we just talk about Quaker witness?

Pivot point 2
Recently a young Friend in Seattle wrote a statement of conscientious objection, brought it to his Meeting for Business, had the statement read and had the occasion noted in the minutes. It is a great statement. RantWoman has read it and really likes it. If RantWoman only wanted to talk about the statement, RantWoman would ask permission to post the statement on this fine model of blog as Quaker journal and editorial catastrophe. RantWoman might still do that, but RantWoman is called, as is her wont, to roil the waters a little bit further:

--What else will happen with the statement?

--Does the author of the statement think there is any likelihood that the statement will be needed anytime soon?

What if it were the norm to ask all of our Quaker youth to think about, maybe besides considering their own leadings, just to get informed and maybe write school papers about their relationship to the Peace Testimony, to military service, to campaigns for universal service in the US, to women in combat, to the poverty draft, to the line one has to sign on college financial aid forms about registering for the draft? What about the history of the right of conscientious objection in general and how Quakers in different countries have brought the peace testimony to bear? What about Friends' own wildly varying experiences of military servic?

RantWoman poses the questions above with some degree of willingness to help support this sort of engagement, though RantWoman, for a number of reasons feels less than well equipped to wade in and definitely not equipped to wade in alone. Teamwork? What's that?

RantWoman has been reflecting on her own life and things she has observed among Quakers. RantWoman was in college when draft registration was re-instituted after the takeover of the US Enbassy in Iran. RantWoman remembers making a point in a Q&A after a campus presentation by the director of the Selective Service administration. RantWoman's question was about gender equality and the right NOT to come home in body bags. RantWoman finds it ironic that now the conversation about gender equality is more about expanding the role of women in the military! Also, it is never too late to stop erasing all the ways women HAVE served in past wars.

RantWoman further remembers considerable campus engagement about human rights and the civil wars in Central America. Some of the most vocal campus activists absolutely were motivated as much by concern about getting sent off to the middle of these wars as about human rights and democracy issues. That did not make these students ineffective advocates. Graduate school in RantWoman's interdisciplinary program meant going to class alongside active duty officers getting degrees as part of their service. No assumptions her. Nope, uh-uh.

When RantWoman first came to Quaker Meeting, there were still a number of Friends who had experience either as WWII conscientious objectors or as Vietnam-era draft counselors. Conscientious objection in the context of the all-volunteer army is a much more complicated issue, but  Meetings in our area also been a spiritual home both for veterans after more contemporary military service history and for youth who specifically enlisted. RantWoman also remembers an Annual session interest group a few years ago abotu conscientious objection: the young Friends leading the interest group thought declaring oneself a conscientious objector might automatically get one sent to jail. Um, no.

But maybe while considering Quaker ripples of all these points, RantWoman can start by asking Irrepressible Nephew for his perspectives....