Veterans Day 2006: Let Us Not Forget

Carl Johnson's family says farewell at Arlington Nat'l Cemetery

There has never been a Veterans Days like the one we will "celebrate" on November 11.

The U.S. is locked in an intractable war in Iraq that never should have been fought. The American people are deeply disillusioned with their president and Congress, and tomorrow's election will do little to change that. The U.S.'s standing in the world is at low ebb. If anything, the homeland is even more vulnerable to a terrorist attack than it was before 9/11.

One consequence of this malaise is that it is easy to forget that the veterans of this war, as well as the wars of the past, deserve to be honored more than ever.

Army Corporal Carl W. Johnson II will not be celebrating this Veterans Day. He was killed in an IED attack near Mosul on October 7, one of over 2,800 American men and women who have perished in this generation's version of The Big Muddy.

Corporal Johnson was 21 and hailed from Philadelphia. I did not know him, but it is possible that he believed in the war that took his life. He is not to be dishonored for feeling that way, nor are any of the other men who have sacrificed life and limb. It is their theocratic and hubristic commander in chief, his morally bankrupt vice president and criminally inept defense secretary who deserve our wrath.

Over the next five days, Kiko's House will publish commentaries on Veterans Day from guest bloggers who range from a legendary 83-year-old African-American journalist who was a Tuskeegee Airman, to a twentysomething blogger based in New York City for whom Iraq is her first war, but almost certainly not her last.

-- Love and Peace, SHAUN MULLEN

(Photograph by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)