Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing...

I don't remember much of Chris after middle school. We were friends in those awkward years before either of us was particularly certain about where we meant to go with our lives. The Gulf War was over and there was no indication that twelve years later, on an ordinary day when I would go to work, study for class, and kiss my sweetie goodnight, he would die trying to save lives in an ill-advised war.

...where have all the flowers gone, long time ago...

I didn't know that he had joined the Navy until I heard he'd been killed; I probably hadn't thought of him in years. But his death has stuck with me. It made the war personal in a way I hadn't felt before. Thousands of Americans and thousands more Iraqis have been killed for a purpose that is still not clear. Are we fighting for justice or vengeance or oil or democracy? Or are we fighting because we just don't know what else to do? Either way, I hate to think of him among all the rows of stark white stones in Arlington or how his name will undoubtedly end up etched in some eventual memorial where so many families will have to grieve, unsatisfied.

...where have all the flowers gone? Young girls have picked them everyone....

If you ever have the chance to walk in Arlington National cemetery, you will find that people almost stroll as if experiencing an impressive garden. And it is impressive, the endless rows of neat white stones stretching out in all directions. It is a place of somber honor and of remembrance, but it is also a place which attests every new generation's failure to learn from the last. The youth of my generation now lie with the youth of my father's generation and his father's generation under changeless green grass.

...oh when will they ever learn...oh when will they ever learn?