Half-Mast — Reminders of War in a Time of National Forgetfulness

© 2011 Peter Free

 

10 June 2011

 

 

Symbols in wind

 

Half-masted flags catch the eye.  Silently useful communications in an age of unceasing and mostly superficial noise.

 

Yesterday, the Air Force Academy’s flags were at half-staff in tribute to 44-year old Major Philip Ambard, a USAFA languages professor, killed during deployment in Afghanistan.

 

Ambard’s admirable effort to become who he was, after emigrating to the United States from Venezuela at age 12, serves as a reminder of the incalculable harm occasioned by strategically senseless wars.

 

 

Wisdom

 

Wisdom evaluates costs and gains before embarking onto battlefields.

 

That is a calculation that has been mostly lacking in deciding the United States’ militaristic foreign endeavors for the last 49 years.