Letter to Dead Troops

I'm sorry. I'm sorry the millions, or whatever figure it is died in vain. November 11th 2011 is supposed to be some sort of remembrance but I'd bet the house that you'd like to forget. Who wouldn't. At 18 years old I was jacking off and watching re-runs to Saved by the Bell while y'all were living your last days. They say you died for my freedom, I'm far from free. They say you died for me but if you met me you sure as hell would wish things were different. If the tables were turned I wouldn't die for you either, it's just human nature. Too much uncertainty to ever conceptualize why you died in the first place. If you died because of Hitler then you know I'm all about causality and I wonder how 1 man got so much power but that's another story. I apologize. 

The world is no better than the way you left it, I often feel responsible so I do everything I can to seal the cracks, to not shy away from my own thoughts an opinions. To be my own. That's where we're similar. Lately I've becoming more acquainted with the idea that this world will be no better than the day I leave it. It's a shame, it's sad. In your time people were getting systematically killed, genocide was occurring and profits were rising to insurmountable levels. Today people are getting systematically killed, genocide exists and the world is burdened with debt while those in a position of power continue to manipulate, exploit, and systematically destroy any aspect of humanity. That's where I sympathize with you. You died so the world could be a better place, it has only gotten worse. You die so people could be more free, instead they are still enslaved. I'm sorry. 

The world has learned nothing from your death and this is nothing short of tragic. You paved the way but instead those who had the power to change steered off the road and formulated their own path. A path filled with destruction, costs, profits, efficiency and debt. A path in which lives are taken at an alarming rate due to things like warfare, cancer, and malicious murders. If there's one thing we were supposed to learn from you, dead soldiers, it was that life no longer had to be the way it was in your time. Instead it's only worse. Millions of people are exploited, misled, and manipulated for economic greed, over consumption, and materialism. If there's one thing you showed me, it was that it didn't have to be this way. What did we do? People are dying just the way you did. Why? I'll never know. When you died, the world was at its lowest point, it has only gotten lower. I'm sorry.

It didn't have to be this way. If there's one thing we both know, we could have lived in peace and harmony. The world does not have to be the way it is today, burdened with death, the mismanagement of lives, the cancer that kills us, the chemicals that destroy us, the human elements that have been replaced by technology. It didn't have to be this way but it is. You died in vein, nothing has changed. Every year someone will sing a gay song, put on a red poppy for a week, think about you for a brief second or two, and then move on with their lives. That's there attempt at feeling like a human and this is mine. The fundamental change of thought we are both seeking is still far away, maybe too far gone and I'm coming to the realization we are one of the same, two different people who will die only to leave the world a worse place than it was when we got here. It isn't our fault and no matter how hard we tried to prevent it, we couldn't. Save a spot for me when you get there. You died in vein and so will I because we're one of the same, we're human.