So, it’s Memorial Day.

Happy Memorial Day.

What’s that supposed to mean?

No matter which side of the the current conflict you’re on, how could anyone possibly be happy about it?

Today we’re supposed to reflect on and be grateful for those who have served and survived as well as those who have fallen. I am. I am grateful. It is a sacrifice that I cannot imagine.

I remember my uncle Danny. He came to stay with us after serving in Vietnam and an honorable discharge from the army. I was five or six. He was quiet but happy to be home. We slept in the same room and the dial of his radium painted watch glowed perpetually in the dark. He had a bullet scar on his shoulder. He was the youngest of my mother’s ten siblings.

A number of my uncles were in the military and even a few cousins. My father’s brother fought, my father was declared 4F. Besides my father’s brother Eldon, who fought in WWII and whom I didn’t really know, uncle Danny was the only one in my extended family to see combat.

Funny how they both ended up abusing alcohol.

As far as I know, he’s uttered aproximately two sentences about it in forty years. I was present for one of those sentences last summer at a family renunion. I was drunk and so was he, I don’t remember what he said.

I then got drunker with cousins Angie, Todd, Rob, shithead Rod, Derrick my coolest inlaw cousin and his wife Marlow………….it goes on and on. Tyke and Bobby, Fred and Sharon, John and Jody, Birdy and Ken, Jim and Carlene, Uncle Larry and Und uncle Skip (Skid), Shirley and Bob…………….It was a big ass collection of at least half crazy white people in the woods of eastern Washington State. You would not have wanted to stumble into that camp after dark if you were a stranger. Most of the Hardings keep a gun close by and so do most of the inlaws. I digress.

Uncle Danny is the sum of my experience with a combat veteran. Like I said, he hasn’t had much to say.

So I’ve got no legitimate personal stake in this. But it really chaps my ass. It’s wrong. Everyone is starting to realize it. Finally.

Once you buy that it’s a lie, and that’s a crucial step because it is, there’s really not much left other than the loss of life.

The emperor is naked and really disgusting to look at. He and his administration are why everyone is dying and having their limbs blown off and brains spilling out of their fucking heads.

The world used to love us because of our global exploits in the name of “Freedom”. Now, they hate us.

Newsflash you asshats: They don’t hate us because of Rosie O’donnell, they hate us because of Dick-in-Bush. And so do I.

Just yesterday I heard some fucktard on the radio trying to make a case for Rosie not supporting the troops and equating them to terrorists. This empty, jingoistic, rhetorical whaleshit is beginning to fossilize.

In other words, that dog don’t hunt. That brush don’t hold no paint. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that if you disagree with the previous two sentiments, you’re either stupid or ignorant. Perhaps willfully ignorant, a fate worse than passing a stone.

It’s all over but the dying. How long that goes on is up to our elected and our ability to sneak smoldering coals into their anal clefts.

Nearly thirty thousand Americans wounded and approaching thirty five hundred dead. Estimates of Iraqi dead are well north of a half million. Nothing accomplished and for no fucking reason. In fact, not only nothing accomplished but an actual deficit in that regard.

This is really stupid and so are we. I agree with Sean Penn. They should all be in fucking jail for what they have done.

Drinks for my friends. Happy holiday.