Memorial Day, 2008 : Effect Measure

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The Editors of Effect Measure are senior public health scientists and practitioners. Paul Revere was a member of the first local Board of Health in the United States (Boston, 1799). The Editors sign their posts "Revere" to recognize the public service of a professional forerunner better known for other things.

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« Masters of War | Main | Preparing for roadside bombs in Massachusetts »

Memorial Day, 2008

Category: Anti-war
Posted on: May 26, 2008 6:34 AM, by revere

The fifth Memorial Day of the Iraq War. I have no words. I'll give you this instead:

Priscilla Herdman is singing this 1971 song by Eric Bogle.

I feel like weeping.

For the Reveres. Memorial Day, 2008.

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That Eric Bogle song is one of the best, as well as being one of the saddest.

Richard Thompson is singing his song about Brit war heroes in the Margaret Thatcher era. Famous singer Al Bowlly died in London in 1941, when a German bomb exploded outside his apartment.

Posted by: wenchacha | May 26, 2008 2:21 PM

wenchacha: I guess the comments don't allow YouTube embeds so they didn't come through but thanks for them. Here is the YouTube URL for those who want to see this great clip, courtesy wenchacha:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc2tr8QNNAU

Thanks.

Posted by: revere | May 26, 2008 2:47 PM

For another wonderful and terrible anti-war song see Paul Brady's 'The Island'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD4eS2Xb6Ls

The last, broken, line catches all the futility of war,
"And we'll go marching down the road to freedom .......freedom?"

Posted by: Gerry Callaghan | May 26, 2008 3:24 PM

Thanks, revere!

A thoughtful and hopeful Memorial Day to all.

Posted by: wenchacha | May 26, 2008 3:26 PM

Gerry: Thank you for this. I didn't know this wonderful song. Worth every second.

Posted by: revere | May 26, 2008 3:46 PM

Very touching song, it made me tear up. We had a cook out today with my mother-in-law who is 82. She is a veteran and today for the first time she wore her dog tags. Happy Mrmorial Day to everyone. Maybe one day there will be no war.

Posted by: Alice | May 26, 2008 5:07 PM

The movie Gallipoli is one everyone should watch - perhaps if all did wars would end. Stars a very young Mel Gibson - oh Mel, Mel where did you go wrong.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/

Posted by: K | May 26, 2008 6:03 PM

The fact that every war we have had in the 20th century and today been arranged by the psychopathic neo-malthusian elite as a tool for builing it's NWO and reduce population, this perhaps should be a reason to weep, or get really ticked off. If we need a song to help that along, so be it. If you weep because you believe all those killed in these wars we killed for a good reason, even if those fighting believed in it, you would be mistaken. And we tend to focus mainly on our own losses, and not the tens of millions killed in our name. Four thousand Americans dead in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's. Thats the kind of ratio our leaders call acceptable, and will be used to justify a long term presence.

Posted by: pft | May 26, 2008 9:54 PM

For another magnificent song by Eric Bogle, look up No Man's Land. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=mUzQ6Am-bbc)

Posted by: Ruth Sard | May 27, 2008 2:12 AM

'Tip of the hat to you revere; no more necessary.

Posted by: Grace RN | May 27, 2008 11:44 AM

I recently read a short ghost story called Waiter Number 34 by Paul Ernst. It is about two military industrialists in their private club chatting up how they are going to start another war using the media and some sort of military error to make sure their profits stay high. They wax eloquently on the amount of money they made and how much their factories produced during the last war. A waiter at their club over hears them and starts to tell them about his experiences at war. He was in the battle of Verdun (so you can see how OLD this tale is).
After he finishes his tale, the waiter exits the hotel and one of the back room staff realizes he used to work there before the war, but he was killed during the battle he so gruesomely described to the two rich industrialists.
I just thought it was so prophetic considering why wars, occupations, and other military exercises are carried out these days. It seems at the bottom it is always about someone wanting what some other person, country, or people have. Not much has changed since we oozed out of the swamp and I daresay not much ever will.

Posted by: Gindy | May 28, 2008 3:06 PM

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