Is It Veterans’ Day, Veteran’s Day, or Veterans Day?
As November 11 approaches, some people may wonder how to write the name of the November 11 American holiday that commemorates the end of world-war hostilities in 1918 and 1945 as well as all who have served the U.S. Armed Forces. Do we use an apostrophe when spelling Veterans Day?
The answer is no. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, “The holiday is not a day that ‘belongs’ to one veteran or multiple veterans, which is what an apostrophe implies. It’s a day for honoring all veterans, so no apostrophe needed.”
No matter the context, I stand by my point.
A necessary evil is still evil, that’s a sad truth but it doesn’t make it more moral.
I think war has a way of proving the fallacy of a binary moral stance. Good and Evil aren’t as clear cut as we would like it to be.
The only thing it’s good at is at showing who is heroic and who is craven. Heroic isn’t perdefinition morally good, it’s selflessness.
And what is selfless about killing people?
Protecting people with risk of death of injury from those who want to kill them
Sacrificing your life, your innocence and morality in order to secure your lands from imperialist threats that would see millions of your people wiped out or oppressed?
is it not selfless to damn yourself to whatever form of oblivion awaits you so that the next generations might not have to?
Why do we have to kill each other though? Why can’t war just be a giant fist fight or like WrestleMania’s Royal Rumble? Why not conduct war in a video or board game?
Why even use soldiers? Let the leaders fight each other! They’re the ones having beef!
(This is rhetorical)
Are Ukrainian soldiers evil for defending their homeland? What about republican fighters in Spain in the 30s? What about the partisans in italy in that same time? Or the french resistance? Killing an evil person, or evil people, doesn’t make one evil.
What about the veterans on the other side of those wars? Do you celebrate them as a “super man” (übermensch)? I’m sure they thought they were fighting for a good cause too.
There’s a somewhat antiquated idea of honor that accounts for that. A good man can definitely be on the other side, and you need to kill him anyway.
I believe that moral sacrifices performed to protect others deserve respect just like physical ones. A necessary evil may still be evil - but it’s also still necessary, which means that someone have to do it to prevent much greater evil. If you happen to benefit from the prevention of that greater evil, it is not right for you to condemn those who have dirtied their hands and soiled their souls to bring out that outcome.
I’m not saying it should be glorified, of course - that would just encourage the ones who actually enjoy that greater evil while making the ones who feel conflicted and guilty about having to do it feel even worse. But you should not criticize them either. Save that for the leaders who actually had more options, maybe even some non-evil ones.