I’ve been thinking about it a lot in the past few days. Not about mattress sales or discounted shoes. Not about grilling and swim parties. No, I’ve been thinking about dead soldiers.
Memorial Day makes me feel like a curmudgeon.
Why? I don’t think going into the military automatically makes one a hero. There, I said it. Almost blasphemy, isn’t it? As politically incorrect as it gets. But not all vets are heroes and not all heroes are vets.
People join the military for lots of reasons. Some want college paid for. For others, it’s the best job available, especially for those raising young families in economically depressed communities. During the Iraq war, when recruitment standards were lowered in order to get enough people to sign up, the military was an opportunity for a fresh start for young men and women who had made bad decisions.
Benefits, job training, a steady paycheck, a chance to negate a rap sheet.
And then there are those who join up because they are patriotic. Their sacrifice and dedication is admirable but even then, blind patriotism enables those who start wars. “My country, right or wrong,” means exactly that. Should people get killed for what is wrong, even if they volunteer?
There have been wars about freedom. The American Revolution was one. It freed us from British control. The Civil War was fought to free people from slavery, if you look at the Union view. From the Confederate side, they fought for the freedom to live as they saw fit, which included slavery. We fought in WWII to free Europe from control of the Nazis. The world is a complex place.
Another blasphemy. We aren’t enjoying our freedoms because soldiers died in Iraq. Or Vietnam or Korea. I believe the soldiers would have defended our freedoms given the opportunity, but that’s not what they were doing there.
Memorial Day is not about mattress sales and discounted shoes. It’s not about swimming and cooking out. It’s about remembering the thousands upon thousands of men and women who fought and lost their lives. We should remember them like we remember the Holocaust. We commemorate it, gave it a holiday so it will never be forgotten, so it can never happen again.
War is an unspeakable horror. Remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice not just this weekend, but next time anyone thinks starting a war is the answer to a problem. Remember the flag draped coffins, the empty seat at the table, the child growing up with a framed photograph of a uniformed soldier instead of a parent.
And then say, “Never again.”
Peace.
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