Memorial Day Is Solemn, Not a Sales Event

There will be so many Memorial Day sales, it’s possible you might not have time to give even a passing thought to what the day means or about those who will be remembered. Why should you? They’re old and dead, and this is today. Memorial Day is about yesterday, isn’t it?
Young folks don’t have time to listen to old soliders and sailors talk about watching buddies die in their arms, or losing minds over what they saw. Who cares? That was their war, not ours.
This weekend coming up is all about cutting loose, maybe going to the beach and drinking, and eating and drinking, celebrating. That is what Memorial Day is about, isn’t it? I mean, how could any teen or twentysomething possibly find time between texting friends about who knows what to think about somebody in a cemetery here or somewhere over the ocean?
Heck, the world is a different place. That war in Vietnam was virtually ancient history to this generation. And those, what do they call them, world wars? Weren’t they around the time of the American Revolution? They’re old stories, subjects for racy war movies, totally irrelevant today, stuff your great grandfather might have been part of, but so what? Veterans? Aren’t they the old guys who sell poppies outside the supermarket?
Perhaps I have been infected by this skeptical age, but frankly, that is what an ever-growing population of our youth and young adults perceive about the day when American veterans, or those who remember them, stand silent in awe and reverence.
Many to this day are still trying to come to grips with why they were spared and a close comrade or relative, perhaps only feet away, maybe half a world away was taken. Such things trouble young soldiers and sailors. Then they grow old and cannot find an answer. There is absolutely no way to describe that eternal puzzlement that clouds their minds.
So, on Memorial Day, when a color guard passes by, and an old timer stands as tall as he or she can, and renders as smart a salute as possible, see how many younger folks do the same.
If you look closely at the face of those old vets, it’s likely there just might be a tear rolling from those aging eyes. On Memorial Day, regardless of their present age, veterans become that 19-year-old private or seaman on watch, ready to follow any order, to charge a machine gun nest or fire an anti-aircraft gun on a battleship.
Just for that fleeting moment, they once more hear their mom or dad urging them “Be safe, and come home in one piece.” They’ll remember the hell they lived through under fire, crawling with bugs, or freezing in the snow, sleeping under a truck to keep warm. They might recall the fear they knew as they jumped into the darkness from a airplane, hoping their parachute would open.
Since I was young, every Memorial Day I listened to grey-haired or white-haired speakers talk of sacrifices in places I couldn’t pronounce, much less spell. One thing they always voiced was the eternal hope and prayers that this might be the last generation of veterans to return home, crippled and scarred, physically or emotionally, from battles few could comprehend.
Regardless of those hopes and prayers, each year, there are new names on tombstones of men and women who continue to die for beliefs in the values Americans hold dearly, and many cherish.
To this day they enlist while many of those ideals are cast aside or sneered by flippant ingrates.
As a veteran, it grieves me to know that deaths of fellow veterans, had their ultimate sacrifice for freedom cheapened so someone can peddle merchandise.
Can’t we have one sacred day to honor those who paid the price for the freedoms we enjoy? Is that asking too much? If we must have a gang-buster sales weekend, make it the Fourth of July. Then,have at it. Please, don’t delude me that Memorial Day is a time to make a fast buck as the barometer of summer. There is a time and place for everything, Memorial Day is not that time.
Fortunately, in many towns, Memorial Day is still special. There are ceremonies that honor those in their communities who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.
It’s not just Memorial Day that should be set apart, the same sentiment holds true for Veterans Day. I cannot imagine those who wanted to decorate the graves of their Civil War sons, husbands and fathers envisioning that solemn day would evolve into a day to earn a buck on the backs of war dead.