Wars Abroad No Defense Against Tyranny at Home

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Wars Abroad No Defense Against Tyranny at Home

On the editorial page of my local newspaper this Memorial Day, there appears a two-panel cartoon. This first panel shows a small boy in summer attire, his baseball cap on backwards as the fashion of the day dictates. The lad, with hot dog and bun on his plate, is standing next to a man at an outdoor grill, busy frying hamburgers and hot dogs.

“How much did all this cost?” the boy asks. The next panel shows the answer: rows of tombstones with a small U.S. flag in the foreground.

It has become a national habit to attribute all of life’s blessings in this treasured land to the supreme sacrifice made by those who fought and died in one or another of the many wars our nation has waged since declaring our independence from the British crown. It is a sentiment expressed not only on patriotic holidays