Memorial Day: What Is It We're Remembering?

This weekend we "remember" those who have died in all of the nation's wars. But what, exactly, are we supposed to remember? How they died? What they died for? Or, perhaps, the lives they might have had if not for the war that killed them?

In many, I would almost say most, cases, we simply do not know how they died. Most deaths in war are quite anonymous--a bullet fired by an unknown opponent, a bomb dropped by a plane far overhead, and the death occurs in the midst of a vast number of deaths.

What they died for? In the history of this nation, I can think of only three wars in which the participants died for a cause worth celebrating: The American Revolution, dying for the right to be an independent nation; the Civil War, dying for the principle that no man should be a slave; and World War II, dying for the idea that a madman should not rule a continent, let alone a world. The others? What did men die for in the War of 1812? The Mexican War? The Indian wars? The Spanish-American War? World War I? The Korean "War"? The Vietnam War? Desert Storm I and II? Afghanistan? If you can tell me, I'd love to know.

But the lives they might have had? Yes, that I can commemorate! The weddings, the marriages, the children, the accomplishments they all might have achieved in lives not cut short by unnecessary deaths.

Those I will honor and remember.