Howard Zinn, eminent peacemonger and sage, can really set you to thinking.

He wrote to me last week that he'd given a Veterans Day speech in Worcester, Mass., telling the audience what Veterans Day should be: a day we pledge "No more veterans!"

Wow! Is that a loaded idea!

Stop making veterans. Pledge to stop making wars for so long that peace outlives even the oldest veterans. Think of it.

Zinn, author of the classic A People's History of the United States, was an Air Corps bombardier in World War II, an old warrior long since turned against war, one of the leading American dissenters against the Bush administration's warmongering.

The postscript to his letter said, "Mailer is now dead. And Kurt [our mutual friend Vonnegut]. And Joseph Heller - all honest witnesses to the 'good war.'"

Everybody mentioned here so far (except Bush) is or was a war veteran. So when Howard says, "No more veterans," he's implying a time when we and many of our most esteemed friends will be gone.

That would include another of our peace correspondents, Korean War Marine Andy Jacobs, longtime Indiana congressman who wrote a book about presidents who send Americans off to become veterans of foreign wars. At 80, Andy now writes anti-Bush barbs from Indianapolis.

We all hope our pens are mightier than the sword. I feel as much esprit de corps in this squad of old pen warriors as I did in the Marines.

Think far ahead to a time when there will remain no living Vietnam or Desert Storm veterans, or even those still being forged in Operation F.U.B.A.R. in Iraq. That will be a long time from now, because soldiers who survive the wars they're sent to fight tend to live long beyond them.

I can remember as a child in the 1930s attending the funerals of my ancestors who were Civil War veterans. Most if not all World War I veterans are gone, including my father, who was also a World War II veteran. World War II is more than 60 years in the past, but old farts from that conflict, like Andy Rooney (and Zinn himself), are still visible among us.

If the Iraq War were to end sometime in the next 10 years (don't count on it), some of its veterans might still be living in 2067 or 2077 or even 2087, so Howard Zinn's dream of "No more veterans" is a long way off. But it could happen. You have to dream far.

Here's the thing: George Bush and Dick Cheney could help make Howard Zinn's dream come true (in the distant future) by not attacking Iran. They're itching to do it, but if they could restrain their pugnacious little selves from that, Iraq War veterans might be the last American war veterans ever!

If they can't restrain themselves (or be restrained), they'll start a series of conflicts that will probably outlast America, and there never will be a time of no more veterans. Give a fool an army and he'll use it. Bush and Cheney still have time to cross the Rubicon again, and they will if they can.

One last hope to prevent that is another of Howard Zinn's noble ideas, advanced in a magazine column a few months ago: A "People's Impeachment" of the United States president. That is, if congressmen keep balking on impeachment, the people must drive them to it. Congress should not allow indictable war criminals to rule America, and if you don't think those guys are indictable, wake up and read the mountains of evidence. Then write, call or e-mail your congressman.

Back to the poignant aspect of Howard Zinn's idea: what about an America without war veterans?

What would we do for parades?

Could we tough-ass Americans, who whipped the Indians, King George III of England, Gen. Santa Anna of Mexico, Aguinaldo of the Philippines, Germany's Kaiser and Hitler, Japan's Tojo, Panama's Noriega, Iraq's Saddam, etc., could we stand having no veterans? Would it dilute our testosterone too much to march in parades celebrating peace?

Imagine all the VFW posts shut down because nobody qualifies anymore for membership! Think of old coots wearing John Deere caps instead of VIETNAM VET caps. If guys couldn't reminisce about war, what would we have to talk about besides sports and erectile dysfunction? Instead of "Semper Fi" and "Hoo-ah!" we'd have to hoot "23 skidoo!"

I must ask, Howard Zinn, would peace be too boring?

Abraham Lincoln called military glory "that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood." Could America be a real country without it?

Well, it would be strange, that's for sure. But we could try it. If for no other reason, it's what Jesus (A.K.A. "The Prince of Peace") told us to do.

James Alexander Thom can be reached at editor@BloomingtonAlternative.com.