by Lucas Gage

May 29, 2023 - It’s Memorial Day and Amerikans are out barbequing, having a few beers, and spending time with their loved ones; they are celebrating to honor the fallen warriors who have died to protect our nation, our freedoms, and our way of life.

But I have a serious question that may make you uncomfortable: Did they really die protecting those things?

If you believe that every war we have ever started, engaged in, or supported was just, then your answer will be a resounding “Yes!” But I think more and more Amerikans are beginning to realize they have been lied to about many of these wars, especially all the wars the came out of the so-called “War on Terror;” many of those Amerikans being war veterans just like me.

Amerika is 246 years old yet has been at war for over 96% of its existence. Certainly, some of these wars must have been just, but most of them, especially after 1913, have been nothing but special-interest wars that benefited the Military Industrial Complex at the expense of Amerikans. We were warned about this entity by people who worked for it: once by General Smedley Butler, who wrote a short book (a mere 12 pages) called War is a Racket; and another time by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his farewell address. I highly recommend every Amerikan read both to get the truth directly from those who were on the inside.

By the way, did you know despite all the fighting our nation has been/is involved in, it has only formally declared war five times? The last time the United States formally declared war was in 1942 against the Axis Powers, yet it has been engaged in “military led operations,” “police actions,” and “humanitarian interventions” for over eight decades since then. Just like our government changed the “Department of War” to the “Department of Defense” in 1949, it uses these sanitized terms to avoid calling what these things really are: wars. As I stated in the last paragraph, most of these wars do not benefit the Amerikan people at all; in fact, they cost them everything.

If you agree with what I’m saying, then you are then left with the question: For what purpose did our troops really die? Again, in some cases, they most certainly did die for our freedom and way of life, way back in the War of Independence and the War of 1812, including other conflicts that helped found, shape, and secure our great nation; but I argue every war after those could have been avoided, for they were results of terrible foreign policy; were driven by special-interests; and led to costs far greater than benefits.

Another question many Americans don’t ask themselves is: How are our troops fighting to protect our freedoms, and to preserve our way of life, when every time they go out to fight some “evil dictator” in a foreign nation, or help “spread democracy” to liberate some supposedly oppressed people, our own government passes things like the USA Patriot Act and NDAA, both of which stripped away our rights here at home? We have hundreds of military bases around the world, with thousands of troops deployed; in fact, according to researchers at Brown University, we are currently engaging in “combat operations” in over 14 countries - only seven of those being acknowledged by The Pentagon - yet somehow our freedoms are under attack, and we are less safe than ever.

When we hear that one of our helicopters crashed in Syria and everyone on board died, which of our freedoms was protected? When one of our convoys is hit by a daisy chain of IEDs, resulting in the deaths of several of our troops, while they were illegally occupying a nation (Iraq) they never should have been in in the first place, which part of our way of life was preserved? How does engaging in these never-ending conflicts protect anything?

How is our way of life being preserved when the moral fabric of Amerikan society, along with the family unit, are being attacked by our government’s “Woke” domestic policies? How do these wars benefit Amerikans when our education system, health, infrastructure, and economy are all literally deteriorating right before our eyes, due to the high cost of funding these wars?

Be honest with yourself, and you will come to the same realization that me and millions of others have.

Now, I am not here to diminish the deaths of our troops on this Memorial Day; despite the fact most of the wars we engaged in were unjust and for special interests, there is one thing that we troops did defend: each other.

I was deployed to Iraq twice: once during Operation Iraqi Freedom, in 2003; and another time during Operation Enduring Freedom, in 2004. I, and every other Marine, along with most Amerikans, were unaware that our government was lying to us. But once we got into the warzone, the politics no longer mattered; it became a life-or-death situation. So, whether we should have been there or not, the only way we were getting out of there was to survive and fight our way out. This is precisely why we must be vigilant and never allow our government to dupe us into another conflict based on lies.

All this is a hard pill to swallow, but we cannot let our patriotism and pride blind us to these uncomfortable truths; this is why I am posting this important message on this special day. It is our responsibility and duty as Amerikans to make sure we never put our troops in harm’s way for no good reason, precisely because it is an absolute tragedy when we put them in a situation where they must fight for their lives. It is not only an absolute tragedy when we lose someone on our side, but also when the other side loses someone on theirs. Moreover, it makes matters worse when we are the aggressors and invaders, rather than the liberators and freedom fighters we were told we were.

So please, enjoy your Memorial Day and honor the fallen as you should, but keep in mind: in order to truly honor our fallen, we must also hold the traitors and special-interests who sent them to die in vain accountable for their actions; otherwise we will never see an end to the Military Industrial Complex and its illegal and unjust forever wars.