A Different Memorial

The quote that "History never repeats itself, but it often does rhyme" is attributed to Samuel Clemons (and probably falsely, and possibly in response to the certain quote of George Santayana that "Those who do not learn history are condemned to repeat it"--although that's not exactly the direct quote either).  Anyhow, history is Memorex, and it can still shatter you after a thousand plays. We are nearing a milestone number of Covid-19 deaths in the US. I'm dubiously hopeful at best that we've learned anything from the 1918 Spanish flu Pandemic. And in one of those internal rhymes of history, the milestone of 100,000 deaths, itself arbitrary (and likely undercounted), has coincided with a day when we remember our war dead. 

We make a "war" on many things rhetorically. A war on want. A war on poverty. A war on drugs. A war on cancer (with numerous battle-related metaphors couched in the frames of winning and losing battles, sometimes found actively appalling to people living day by day with the disease). Is it any wonder that in the face of a potentially deadly situation, politicians use the metaphor of war again to conscript a populace into accepting some lives lost in a "struggle" and describe health care workers as heroes "running into death just like soldiers run into bullets"?

The dead are valorized (temporarily) and their numbers become milestones and statistics while others just "soldier on".   And try not to become heroes and statistics themselves. 

The logical things one needs to do aren't even confrontational at all. Not spreading the disease is actually pretty great. Stay socially distanced. Wash your hands and everything else. Wear a mask. Don't let yourself be the ripe territory that the disease invades and makes a base of operations for potential spread--if you need to think about it that way. 

You don't actually even need a gun to fight this one, just any goddamn common sense at all. But wear a mask--

(And yes, masks are super-wartime-y) because it's the responsible and respectful thing to do, and tells Mr. Coronavirus to get the hell out of our faces. 

We'll meet again, folks. We don't have to crowd the beaches like Normandy, or fill theaters or arenas. Just don't give the virus ground, and it will stop spreading. (Look you guys, herd immunity is actually going to be a long war without a vaccine in immediate sight.) 

Anyway, if we are going to look at Covid-19 as a war, we better memorialize the dead, take care of the veterans who may have long-lasting effects from their exposure), go to work on new weapons (treatments and vaccines) and vow to fight smarter and risk the least lives. 

I am here with you in these trenches. Let's look out for one another. 

For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne

No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.