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On Veterans/Remembrance Day, We Ignore the People Most Affected by War — Civilians
I’m reproducing this article I wrote for the Washington Post as we approach Remembrance or Veterans Day. This article has even more relevance given the large number of civilian deaths in Gaza.
You can read the original article if you have a Washington Post subscription here (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/11/on-veterans-day-we-ignore-the-people-most-affected-by-war-civilians/)
“By Ray Williams
November 11, 2014 at 10:21 a.m. EST
Across the world on Tuesday, people are commemorating historic military conflicts and the soldiers who fought in them. Veterans Day in the United States is just one of many observed holidays. Canada and several European countries are recognizing Remembrance Day this week. The Polish are marking Independence Day. For Americans, it’s the second military-related holiday of the year, following Memorial Day in May. On all of these holidays, the focus is almost exclusively on armed forces casualties in battles since World War I. Conspicuously absent from their objectives is the remembrance of the many other lives lost in these wars — the civilian casualties. While it is civilians who suffer most during armed conflicts, there are astonishingly few memorials or formal observances for…
