Veterans and Families Speak Against Endless War
Memorial Day is intended as a solemn day of remembrance for U.S. service members who died in military service. The holiday emerged after the Civil War, rooted in grief, reconciliation and the unfinished struggle over freedom and democracy.
One of the earliest observances took place May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina, where newly freed Black residents honored 257 Union soldiers who died in a Confederate prison camp at the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club. Freedmen, abolitionists and community organizations reburied the soldiers, decorated their graves with flowers and marched in a massive public procession.
That spirit of remembrance stood in stark contrast to the militarized spectacle surrounding Fleet Week events leading into Memorial Day this year. While warships and military displays celebrated American power, anti-war organizers gathered nearby to focus attention on the human costs of war.
On Monday, activists with CodePink, Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and About Face presented an exhibit titled Eyes Wide Open. The installation displayed 175 pairs of shoes representing children killed during a Feb. 28 U.S. bombing at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls Elementary School in Minab, Iran, alongside photographs of 13 U.S. service members killed during the Trump administration’s undeclared conflict with Iran.
Members of the groups said Memorial Day should center on mourning, accountability and the consequences of military intervention rather than patriotic spectacle.
Army mother fears another endless war
Yadira DeSaint said Memorial Day has become emotionally devastating for her family because her son, an Army Reserve servicemember, remains deployed in the Middle East after volunteering for Operation Spartan Shield.
DeSaint said the escalating conflict with Iran reminds her of the Iraq War and raises fears of another prolonged conflict with devastating consequences for both civilians and troops.
“He didn’t sign up for this war,” she said. “None of these families did.”
Her son deployed in October on what was expected to be a noncombat assignment, but worsening regional tensions left troops stranded in increasingly dangerous conditions, she said.
Feeling isolated as a military parent, DeSaint connected with anti-war organizers and joined Peace Week activities. She helped assemble the “Eyes Wide Open” exhibit to encourage public conversations about the human cost of war, particularly the deaths of children.
DeSaint sharply criticized the administration’s handling of the conflict, saying political leaders entered the war without clear objectives or preparation for the consequences. She said military families are focused less on political rhetoric than on whether their loved ones survive deployment.
She also described deteriorating conditions for troops stationed throughout the region. According to DeSaint, many servicemembers have been relocated from established bases, creating communication problems and supply shortages that increase anxiety for families at home.
Her son had previously been stationed at a military base in Kuwait that was later struck by Iranian missiles March 1, she said. He and other troops had reportedly been evacuated weeks before the attack.
DeSaint urged military families to speak publicly about the burdens placed on troops and their loved ones.
“We can’t just trust politicians to take care of them,” she said. “Families have to advocate for the people we love.”
Military families oppose escalation
Pat Alviso, a member of Military Families Speak Out since 2005, said the organization emerged during the buildup to the Iraq War as military families organized against what they viewed as endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Alviso joined after following anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan while struggling emotionally with her Marine son’s deployments.
Coming from a Latino military family, Alviso said military service had long been viewed as honorable. But after Vietnam and the wars that followed, she began questioning whether modern U.S. military interventions were defensive wars or “wars of aggression.”
“To support the troops means bringing them home alive and taking care of them afterward,” she said.
Alviso spoke about the emotional toll military deployments place on families, describing years spent fearing for her son’s safety during six deployments overseas. She said many military families who opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars now fear a broader regional conflict involving Iran.
She also criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration, arguing political loyalty has replaced military expertise within Pentagon leadership.
Alviso expressed frustration with Congress as well, particularly with delays surrounding War Powers resolutions intended to limit military action against Iran. She argued lawmakers have a constitutional responsibility to check presidential war powers before conflicts escalate further.
“The United States cannot afford another war morally, financially or politically,” she said.
Former Marine questions American militarism
Takoune Norasingh, a former Marine Corps public affairs specialist and member of About Face Los Angeles, said his experiences during the War on Terror fundamentally changed how he viewed American military power.
Norasingh served in Okinawa, Japan, and later with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response Africa as a combat correspondent documenting military operations. Though he did not serve directly in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said he witnessed the broader machinery of U.S. military influence overseas.
A turning point came during protests in Okinawa following the rape and murder of a local woman by an American contractor. Norasingh said the demonstrations challenged what he had previously been told about anti-American activism abroad.
“As an Asian American Marine, I empathized with the anger and grief people felt,” he said.
He said participating in public relations campaigns designed to improve the U.S. military’s image deepened his skepticism toward American exceptionalism and the narratives used to justify military expansion.
After leaving active duty, Norasingh became involved in organizing around Palestine solidarity movements and domestic protest activity in Los Angeles. He described his transition from Marine to anti-war activist as emotionally difficult and shaped by what he called “moral injury.”
Norasingh argued the current conflict with Iran was both unjust and avoidable. He said U.S. leadership ignored warnings about the likelihood of escalation and overestimated American military superiority.
He also warned that narratives used to discredit protesters today resemble rhetoric he heard while serving overseas.
“People are told protesters are manipulated or paid off,” he said. “I heard the same thing in Okinawa.”
Norasingh said his goal during Fleet Week was not confrontation with servicemembers but engagement. He distributed information about protections under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including the right to refuse unlawful orders and seek conscientious objector status.
He said anti-war veterans hope to broaden public understanding of war’s consequences beyond the battlefield.
“The burden is always heavier for the people living where these wars happen,” he said.
Lessons learned
Memorial Day’s origins are often forgotten beneath patriotic ceremony and military celebration. Going back to the first Decoration Day in Charleston, South Carolina, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, we are reminded that it matters whether war is just or not.
During the final year of the Civil War, Confederate authorities converted the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club in Charleston, South Carolina, into an open-air prison for captured Union soldiers. In 1864, as the Confederacy faced severe shortages of resources and mounting military pressure, Charleston became both a strategic target and a symbolic battleground.
Hundreds of Union prisoners—many of them captured during campaigns in Virginia and along the South Atlantic coast—were confined at the race track under brutal conditions. The grandstand and horse-racing grounds were transformed into makeshift barracks surrounded by fencing and guarded by Confederate troops. Exposure, disease, malnutrition, and inadequate medical care led to widespread suffering. At least 257 Union soldiers died there and were buried in unmarked graves behind the track’s grandstand.
When Union forces occupied Charleston in February 1865 after the Confederate evacuation of the city, Black Charlestonians uncovered the burial site. Members of the city’s African American community, including ministers, teachers, laborers, and mutual aid societies, organized an effort to properly exhume and rebury the soldiers. They built a fence around the cemetery, landscaped the grounds, and renamed it the “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
Three months later, on May 1, thousands gathered at Charleston’s Race Course to dedicate the burial ground of 257 Union soldiers who had died during the Civil War. Nearly 10,000 people attended the ceremony, most of them members of Charleston’s Black community. The site had been carefully prepared by 24 Black laborers known as the “Friends of the Martyrs” and members of the “Patriotic Association of Colored Men,” who raised the graves and enclosed the cemetery with a sturdy fence.
The ceremony opened with a psalm reading, hymns, and prayer before a grand procession began. Leading the march were approximately 2,800 Black schoolchildren carrying bouquets and scattering flowers across the graves. They were followed by members of the “Patriotic Association of Colored Men,” the “Mutual Aid Society,” and hundreds of citizens who also placed flowers upon the burial site.
Throughout the ceremony, the children sang patriotic songs including The Star-Spangled Banner, America, Rally Round the Flag, and John Brown’s Body. By the procession’s end, the graves were covered in flowers. Military officers, clergy, and prominent abolitionist James Redpath joined the crowd in honoring the fallen soldiers and commemorating their sacrifice.
The Union victory, paid for with blood and the aspirations of America’s Founders a hundred years prior, laid the groundwork for suffrage beyond the white man. It didn’t cure racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and every other impulse to dominate, control, and exploit… But it led to a pathway to freedom and justice that couldn’t easily be erased.