Change how we celebrate Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for those who died in service of the USA. 1) Drop policies that only create more veterans. Absent surprise attack, military can be deployed only after declaration of war. (Const. Art. I, sec 8.) 1/5

Administrations, GOP & Dem, more easily order attacks when the Constitution is shoved aside. Less military use = fewer veterans, living & dead. 2) Cut the defense budget by 50%. It doesn’t take a genius to realize you “cannot simultaneously prevent and 2/5

prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage, and resolution than are needed to prepare for war.” Einstein wrote that. Or, to state it differently, other countries don’t like us when we bomb the crap out of them. Some of the money can 3/5

go to taxpayers as reduced taxes. Another chunk can go to build infrastructure & take care of the poor, in whose numbers we have many veterans. We can mothball a few (very expensive) aircraft carriers. They’d be the first (very expensive) targets in a war 4/5

w/China or Russia. This weekend think also of the draft dodgers who, once safe from induction, advocated others be deployed & killed. J.P. Morgan bought his way out of the Civil War. The 45th POTUS endured the agony of bone spurs, but not combat. 5/5