Father's Day...Mother's Day....Army Day?

Army Day in Guatemala is June 30th. When I first saw this on my desk calendar thingie, I was all, what in the hell is a country with a history like Guatemala's doing with an Army fucking Day? So my industrious arse Googled it.

Turns out it is a celebration/commemoration of the June 30 1871 revolt for agrarian reform in which Justo Rufino Barrios overthrew the Conservative president, Vicente Cerna. I'm all for overthrowing Conservatives and for agrarian reform. But in my readings on the United Fruit Company's history, I found a slight discrepancy. Was it not Barrios who began the selling off of Guatemalan lands to a company which came to be known as the UFCO? And doesn't that negate any agrarian reforms altogether?Anyway, about a hundred years later, there was this pesky little civil war there in which the army did most of the killing, taking jobless campesinos and making them into death squads who later blocked roads and demanded compensation for lowering themselves to army levels and joining in the massacreing. I don't know about you all, but if I were the president, I would have that day abolished as my very first presidential duty. All this talk about fixing past woes, but Army Day still exists in Guatemala of all places. As I said before, these are some half-assed and illogical times my friends. Just wanted to remind you all that this is still the case.