It's Memorial Day Tomorrow
Have Your Fun in the Sun. Eat a Burger If That's Your Thing. Don't Forget What Memorial Day Is and What It Means.
(I’m going to ahead and drop a link to a speech/article written by Tom Cotton, formerly of the US Army and currently serving as the junior senator for Arkansas. I won’t be quoting from or commenting on the article as I don’t feel that I’ve earned the right to do so. You should read it anyway and I don’t care what your politics are. You’ll notice that I didn’t mention his party. That was intentional. )
Tomorrow is Memorial Day. For most people that means carnivals, parades and cookouts, with maybe a drink or two tossed in. It’s the last day of a three day weekend. Everyone is in a good mood. We’ll all applaud our soldiers as well as any others that march by. That’s a good thing. But it’s not really what Memorial Day is.
Memorial Day is a day to remember the war dead of the United States. It’s supposed to be a day of mourning. It’s supposed to be a day when you visit a graveyard and pay some respects. It’s a day when you should find that gold star family (and how many Americans even remember what those are, I wonder.) and ask them if there is anything they need. It’s a day when you should rightly feel melancholy.
I could go over the numbers. Here are some from the USA Today:
World War I: 116,516.
World War II: 405,399.
Korean War: 36,574.
Vietnam War: 58,220.
Persian Gulf War: 382.
Iraq-Related Operations: 4,605.
Afghanistan-Related Operations: 2,459
And that’s just since World War I and leaves out the losses of the American Civil War which, for quite awhile held the dubious title of killing more Americans than all other wars combined. (That is no longer the case but it is still, thankfully, the war in which the most Americans lost their lives.) Even the numbers though, don’t tell the story.
I don’t know if Hillary Clinton was the first one to say this, but it has become popular among feminists to claim that women are the primary victims of where because they lose their brothers and their husbands. I’m not denying that it’s hard for them or that they have made a tough sacrifice. The fact remains that the vast majority of those lost were American fighting men and they, along with their brothers in arms who came back with wounds both physical and mental, are the primary victims in war.
To say that war is horrible is cliche. It’s also simplistic. The people who go to war are ordered to do so. They may have volunteered. They may not have. That is irrelevant. What matters is that someone else sent them somewhere knowing they might not come back and also knowing that both by law and by oath they were required to do as they were told. What makes the fighting man so impressive is that they know the risks and they go anyway.
I’m not saying they didn’t want to make it home. I’m not saying they didn’t plan to make it home. But, when push came to shove, they hugged their loved ones, they followed orders and they put their asses on the line in full cognizance of the possible consequences not knowing what would happen. For many of them, it was the worst.
Contrary to what some will tell you, they were warned when they enlisted. They were briefed on how to contact a member of the Judge Advocate General Corps to make out a will. They were offered a chance to purchase life insurance that would pay in the event that they were killed in combat.
And every last one of them followed their orders, did their jobs and didn’t come back. Every one of them missed the rest of their lives. Many never had the chance to get married or have kids. Many never bought their first car or owned a home.
Many others did all those things and left them behind when their lives ended in combat. There are remains of fathers in every American military cemetery. Many of them never got to see their children grow up. Some of them died before they could even meet their kids.
Some of them met their end in their first fire fight. They’re amazing enough. But imagine (unless you don’t have to) the feeling of seeing one or more of your buddies lose their lives and then having to go out into the fight again after that. Some of those guys didn’t make it back either.
Christ said “Greater man has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) He’s right. And the reason a man will advance into fire is because he doesn’t want to let his buddy down. They may have enlisted because ‘Merica. They may even have sung God Bless America or The Star Spangled Banner on the way to enlist or to embark for the trip to the front. What drove them forward though, was knowing that failure to advance meant that no one was watching their buddy’s back and that, without them, their buddy might not make it back. And they got up, walked out, and went to war.
This country owes a debt to its veterans that it can never repay. It owes more to those that have passed in its service more than any of those who made it home or were never forced to fight.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It’s not a day about cold beers, hot sun and rah rah speeches. It is a day to remember those that took the war to the enemy and didn’t come back. It’s about those who would prefer to be sitting next to you under the American flag that you fly one or two days a year and having beers with you but can’t and will never be able to. Tomorrow is not “Happy Memorial Day.” Tomorrow is, or at least should be, a solemn day of mourning. Tomorrow is Memorial Day.
Remember those that won’t be here. Remember those that can’t. They gave their lives so you could live in peace. Remember their names. Remember their stories. Remember their sacrifices. And you enjoy that burger. They’ve earned it.