Yesterday’s Memorial Day commemorations, honoring those who lost their lives fighting wars, happened in the context of this warning:

“It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen. Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere.”

This from the Vice president of the US, Mike Pence, who addressed young men and women who have an obligation to serve for the next 5 years, with an additional 3 years of being in the reserve. That is a time span of 8 years within which he predicts active warfare, potentially in this hemisphere…. The clouds of war are gathering.

Maybe he read the scientific reports and takes them seriously, when the rest of the administration is actively undermining any acknowledgement of the consequences of climate change.

New research has shown a causal linkage between climate change, conflict and migration. The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) has provided data as of January of this year that confirms the speculation about the relationship between climate change and armed upheaval with hard numbers (Syria included.)

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Time to plan yet another war memorial? In the small town of Marseille, IL, a group of civic-minded bikers fund-raised and built a memorial for those killed in ongoing wars. From the website:

On June 19th, 2004 a Granite Memorial Wall was dedicated commemorating the servicemen and women who have lost their lives in worldwide conflicts since 1979. The project was conceived by Tony Cutrano and Jerry Kuczera, built with donated material and labor and is the first of its kind in the History of the United States to give honor to our fallen by name while a conflict is ongoing. It took 20 years to Honor our Vietnam Veterans. Almost 60 years to Honor our World War II Veterans. The names on the wall represent our fallen heroes from such diverse locations as Panama, Lebanon, the Balkans, Grenada, Somalia, Haiti, USS Cole, USS Stark, Terrorist attacks in Italy, Greece, Scotland, and the current conflicts in the Middle East.

Here is a report by a father of a soldier about a visit of this memorial. I found it intensely moving.

Photographs today are all IPhone snaps from a single stroll along the Esplanade this weekend. The dysphoric content seems a fitting background for musings on the losses, pain, futility and causes of war.

Music are some choices across the board that helps us to remember.