America’s first Memorial Day observance was on May 30, 1868, the opening day at Arlington National Cemetery. Only Union soldiers were buried there that day, and flags were placed on each grave. Later, the remains of Confederate soldiers were added, with identical tombstones and US flags, a practice that continues until this day.
We are now observing our 168th Memorial Day weekend, and most American families have lost at least one member in a war. In my case, my father’s big brother, Meyer, was killed at the Battle of the Bulge less than six months after I was born.
Nothing is unique about our family experience: Most American families have lost someone since that first Memorial Day, and many of us will probably take a minute to remember someone over this holiday weekend.
On this weekend, I always think of Myer Israel, my dad’s older brother who was killed at the Battle of the Bulge about four months after I was born. There are others I have known who never came home from Vietnam. I think there were eight members of my basic training unit at Fort Polk, La., who were killed in their first weeks in Vietnam.
At the same time, I was being trained to be a hospital medic in Texas, and then as a Reservist, I went home to become “a weekend warrior” while others I knew were drafted and went off to Saigon, never to return home alive. It was an ugly, cruel, and stupid war, but it seems to me that most of them have been the same.
Observing Memorial Day has changed since then. When I came of age, Memorial Day was a somber day, with military veterans parading streets and officers giving addresses that usually echoed Lincoln’s words that the honored dead shall not have died in vain, a claim that I do not hold as a self-evident truth.
Memorial Day is no longer observed as such a somber day. There are fewer parades and eulogies these days, and veterans of our more recent battles seem to want to get on with their lives rather than reflect on their costly and bloody experiences.
Lots of people die in vain in every war, and mostly they are the victims of geography. Their homes became battlefield obstacles.
Times have changed, as do the way we observe them. Most people embrace the holiday as a source of paid holidays, almost endless sporting events on TV, backyard barbecues, or eating out, and enjoying movies, TV, or live concerts.
It seems to me that the ritual of honoring the war dead has been replaced by the rituals of watching less violent battles on football, baseball, and soccer fields or basketball courts.
I am certain there are still many Memorial events that take place, but they seem to fly below the radar screens of most people relishing long weekends without once thinking about the war dead we are supposed to be honoring.
Even where people meet to honor those who lost their lives in combat, the world little notes and rarely remembers those who died of the crime of living in places that became battlefields for causes they had nothing to do with.
Only ten percent of those who die by the symbolic sword actually lived by swords.
According to the United Nations, 90 percent of the people killed in US Wars have been civilians. Just look at these numbers:
33,686 Americans died in the Korean War, while there were 750,000 Korean civilian deaths. Some say the number is higher because the North Koreans decline to admit their real losses.
There were 58,220 American military deaths in Vietnam with an estimated 1.1 million civilian deaths in the North and South.
In Afghanistan, 2,459 American soldiers were killed. Civilian death incidents range between two-and-three million civilians.
Around 405,000 American soldiers died in World War 2, which killed 75 million people overall at least 40 million were civilians.
It Seems to Me most fitting that we reserve one day per year that we pause to remember over 500,000 American soldiers killed in and after the Civil War, as well as the millions of innocent civilians who were killed in wars they did not fight.
I most certainly condemn no one for spending this weekend with family and friends, enjoying sports, chomping on burgers from the grill, and generally having a good time.
But there are those who cannot celebrate. They may have fought and survived in the wars I have mentioned. Still, on this Memorial Day weekend, in the country they fought for in place, where many saw their comrades killed, an estimated 35,575 of them will go to bed homeless tonight on the eve of the holiday that salutes them.
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As a German, I am very grateful for the soldiers who fought in World War 2 and brought freedom back, at least to the Western part. The sacrifices were huge, but necessary to stop the Nazis.
Thanks, Shel. Very thoughtful and appropriate.