Memorial Day

A day of remembrance.

Who, exactly, are we remembering?

The day was established to remember the fallen of the Civil War. Although I have been accused of being older than dirt, I don't personally remember any Civil War soldiers, victims or veterans.

However, I recently saw, for the first time, the monument in the center of the traffic circle I have been driving around for several years. What an shiver ran up my spine as I read the names of the town's dead from four Civil War battles. I enjoy reading about our history, and I didn't even recognize the names of two of the four battles. The stone soldier atop the monument wears the wool uniform of the enlisted Union soldier, but it is the stone grey color of the Confederate soldier. Appropriate, since both were Americans.

Incredible numbers of Americans died in that war. Appalled by the carnage they had seen, some former Union officers established, in 1871, an organization to improve the marksmanship of the civilians who might be called upon to defend the country in the next conflict. Union soldiers, more city-bred than farm boys, had not been able to shoot fast or accurately, with the result that they were cut down by the hundreds like stalks of wheat before the farmer's scythe. That organization came to be known as The National Rifle Association (NRA), and it still to this day, assists in training civilians, police, and military members safety and marksmanship. An institutional memory of the lessons learned from the hundreds of thousands of fallen heroes of that war.

Thousands of our soldiers have fallen since then, warriors for our way of life.

While I did not serve in the Viet Nam War, my generation "owns" that conflict. I ride with the Patriot Guard Riders to honor and "stand by those who stood for us." The veterans from Nam are getting old and grizzled now, but remembering the fallen is no abstract concept for them. Many of them saw comrades fall with their own eyes. All can remember faces that are no longer present. When we ride to honor the newly fallen, these old faces remember what combat is like, know what sacrifices these younger soldiers made to volunteer for service. They also know what heartache comes to the families that survive at home.

And that is really what Memorial Day as all about - not just remembering battles and men old and moldy before your birth, but the soldiers and the families left behind by all the wars, including the ones we're in right now.

Enjoy the parades and the picnics, the fireworks and the special sports events. But then remember the sacrifice that this day commemorates, and DO something about it. Honor the dead. Honor their commitment, that, "no man has greater love than this; that he should give his life for his brother." Remember that you and I, all our countrymen are the brothers for whom they give their lives.

Now, look at someone 17 or 18. Might they be in "the sandbox" next year? Might they be meeting faces filled with hatred across the muzzles of guns in your name just months from now?

Those who are weak in intellect and will might argue that if we would simply not fight, no one would be killed. Tell that to the 3000 who were in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, or on the plane that went down in Shanksville, PA. No matter how wussy we act, there will still be someone who has less than we have, or who will despise us for our religion, or our color, or because we are such wussies, and who will fight us whether we fight back or not.

Conflict is neither avoided nor won by weakness. Peace can only be achieved when we are both ready and willing to go to war. Anyone may throw sand in the face of the whimp, but who will provoke the fellow who is strong and alert? Our best service to those who have fallen will be to harden our wills and strengthen our country. A tiger can protect its family, a paper tiger merely looks pretty until somone tears it up.

With their deaths, our brothers and sisters in uniform have invested Memorial Day with a terrible value. While we celebrate their memory, let us not squander that investment in weakness and indifference.

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