A Vietnam veteran who attended a Veterans Day ceremony yesterday in Maryland, and who read my column on the senseless death in senseless combat in a senseless war of Henry Gunther, had this to say in an e-mail, asking not to be quoted by name:

The more of these things I attend, I keep thinking that all we do by "remembering" the dead vets is to ensure that there'll always be more of them. I wonder if we wouldn't do better to blow up all of these memorials and bring an end to war. The more that we commemorate them, it just serves to glorify it for our star-struck young people, and on it goes. I see no end in sight. The same is true for all of our museums. The first 15 minutes that I'm in one, I think how great they are, and then I recall that it all is for just one thing: the deaths of many people. Very sad. Most of our "history" is about war, death, and killing.