Memorial Day: How Do We Remember?

Traditionally, we celebrate Memorial Day with parades--parades that feature marching bands playing patriotic songs, and military and veterans units marching, and military equipment rolling down the main street of town.

But, continuing my theme from yesterday's post, is that the most appropriate way to remember our war dead? In doing so, are we not glorifying the very thing that resulted in their deaths? Now, I have no objection to the laying of wreaths or placing of flags on graves. Indeed, those activities were what gave rise to the original name of the holiday: Decoration Day (my grandmother called it that long after the official designation changed). Those are appropriate memorials to those sacrificed in war.

But wouldn't a better public celebration be one dedicated to peace? A celebration that said, "Let us never have to add to the men and women we honor this day"? No more speeches touting our military might, our preparedness for combat. Let us instead speak of our preparedness for peace.

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.

Thoughts on Memorial Day

This weekend we celebrate and honor our dead from all wars, as we should.

But I am bothered by a recent trend, common at least since 9/11--calling our soldiers, sailors and marines "warriors". It seems to suggest--to me, at any rate--that their primary purpose is attack, rather than defend. I much prefer to call them, as we once did, servicemen and servicewomen, because they serve in a variety of ways: defense, protection, rescue, construction, etc.

"Warrior," in my mind, conjures up an image of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning"), or John Wayne is his worst jingoistic moments. I prefer to think of our servicemen and women as Henry Fonda in Mister Roberts, Harry Morgan in MASH, or even Matthew Broderick and Morgan Freeman in Glory.

I may have more to say on this tomorrow and Monday.