Before my older-self marched for peace, my childhood-self marched in the Mineola Memorial Day parades of the 1960s. Our scout troop would assemble with all the other parade units, then we’d march up Mineola Boulevard, across Jericho Turnpike, and down Marcellus Avenue … ending at the park next to the public library where a large stone memorial bore the names of those who had died for us.

I remember wearing white gloves and stepping in time to the drums while impatiently waiting for my turn to carry the flag (and here I insert an image from another town on Long Island, but really, it could’ve been Anytown, USA) …

At the end of the parade route, we thrilled to hear the wailing fire engine sirens and the thundering gun salute. It was all so exciting, so why, I wondered, were the grownups always so somber?

Then we’d all walk home and have a cookout and that was that. Another year, another war, another plaque …

60 years on and nothing had changed as of 2019, only Covid having the power to to temporarily derail the march of time.

When I was 13 and no longer a scout, I wore a black armband and surely listened to Edwin Starr singing War on the radio … the original here … and later still, when rock videos became a thing, I must have watched this cover by Springsteen.

Seeing the graphic images at the beginning of the Springsteen video, I recall how my folks rarely watched the national news back in the day, saying they didn’t want to bring images of death into their home. These days, I can’t bear to stay in the room as the all-too-real images of death continue to spew off the screen, around the world and in the very streets of America.

There’s a lot of truth to Rachel Maddow’s saying, “watch what they do, not what they say.” I’ll believe this country is on the right track when we finally have true gun control, a national holiday celebrating the end of war, and a seat in the President’s cabinet dedicated to waging peace in the world.

Until then, I’ll mourn the war dead and honor the memory of those who believed in a cause greater than self.

And always I will wonder what might have been …

imagine if we the people had deployed armies of teachers and lawyers, doctors and nurses, construction workers and engineers, rather than soldiers …

imagine if we had fully funded the machinery of peace rather than the weapons of war …

imagine if we had vowed to be true builders of nations by killing the causes of terror with kindness rather than feeding the beast with terrors of our own making …

And then, I dare to imagine it’s still not too late to try …