Monday is Memorial Day! An Essay.

Monday is Memorial Day. It’s the holiday each year, celebrated on the last Monday in May, to remind us of those who gave their lives in service to our nation. It used to be called Decoration Day, because people would go (as some still do) to the graves of Americans who were killed in battle and decorate them with our country’s flag as well as flowers and other items. Tomorrow, as is tradition, the person who occupies the Oval Office will go to Arlington Cemetery and place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns…a memorial that is there to remind us of the terrible price of war and the enormous cost of securing the blessings of liberty.

Memorials are important. As the word implies, memorials are used to remind us of important people and/or events. Memorials come in all shapes, sizes and forms, and are everywhere we go. In fact, some memorials are so commonplace that we forget that they are, in fact, memorials. We see them—monuments or other symbols designed to evoke a memory—and, we don’t remember, at least we don’t remember to the extent that we should remember.

Some memorials, by the way, are being hidden from us in the hopes that we won’t “remember.” The flag-draped coffins coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are memorials to the lies that we have been told by those who have broken their pledge to “protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic."

A memorial is erected, not only for those erecting it to help them remember---but, also to TEACH lessons to those who come later who were not there to see the event or to know the person for whom the memorial stands. That’s why we should be allowed to see those flag-draped coffins. But, I digress.

I’ll never forget as a child of about 10 years of age, standing inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. looking into the stone face of the giant man sitting in that chair, and walking out from that building looking in the same direction Lincoln faces and seeing that grand spire that almost touches the sky, named after the first U.S. President and seeing the flags of the various states which encircle that monument….and, then seeing to the right across the water a circular building honoring the man who authored the Virginia Statue for Religious Liberty, which became the basis for the Constitution’s first amendment’s protection guaranteeing the separation of church and state, as well as the Declaration of Independence.

I had heard about those men in school. I didn’t know much about them…but, seeing those memorials made me want to learn more about them. And as I did learn more about them, and had the opportunity to go back a second time years later, seeing those memorials again filled me with a sense of awe and wonder at the sacrifices that those men, and other men and women who are memorialized on that mall, made to secure and protect the blessings of liberty that many of us take for granted.

None of us here today were alive during the times of Washington and Jefferson, and Lincoln. But, yet, when we see those memorials we REMEMBER them, don’t we? Or rather, we REMEMBER THE LESSONS they and their contemporaries, both men and women, taught us as those lessons were passed on to us from generation to generation---memories kept alive, in part, by the memorials that stand in their honor.

Each and every year, thousands upon thousands of school children walk that mall in Washington D.C. on class field-trips. They see the monuments to great people, to bloody battles, to human achievement, and to unknown heroes. They are taken there to impress upon them the lessons of history.

That’s the main reason for memorials…to TEACH THE CHILDREN the history of their people.

And, since that is the case: I want to ask a simple question of you today. “What memorials are we establishing for our children, today?” What is it that we are leaving behind in our wake that will speak of who we are, what we did, and what trials we overcame? And, when our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren ask their parents what they mean, will the remembrances be good or bad? Will the lessons taught be honorable ones? For, you see, we erect memorials to both the good and the bad. Yes, we have a Washington Monument. But, we also have a U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Yes, we have Mt. Rushmore. But, we also have empty chairs in another park where the Murrah Federal Building once stood in Oklahoma City. And, today the statue that we call “Lady Liberty” looks across the waters to a memorial being built at Ground Zero.

Will the memorials we build as one generation of Americans speak of love or hate, war or peace, justice or injustice, inclusion or exclusion, division or unity, building up the nation or tearing it apart?

Make no mistake, our history is being written, carved in stone and left behind for all the future generations to read…and someday, a long time from now, someone will read that history and make judgments about whether or not we lived up to our self-proclaimed title as the “greatest nation on earth.” Our grandchildren will judge us by our history we write and the legacy they inherit from us. From the memorials we leave behind for them, what lessons will they learn?

Redstone

Pilot, PBR (Patrol Boat, River), Quang Tri, Qua Viet, '69-72.

Below a minimum threshold that would make any memorial significant to them. I remember my first visit to Washington -- as an adult -- and how my first view of the monuments on the mall validated my connection with what was good about America. And on that occasion, I witnessed the school children on their field trips, they, too amazed at what they were seeing.

But now? There's no sense of history that I can detect among the people. Popular culture is entirely set in the now. The Vietnam memorial was the last one installed on the Mall that actually echoed the history it represented. Since then, the Korean War monument, the second Vietnam monument, and the deplorable Disney-Riefenstahl WWII monument have been installed to no particular effect.

And over the last 6 years, the very notion of sacrifice for the common good has been cheapened to near valuelessness. The 3,000 at the World Trade Center? Pointless and grotesque deaths. Soldiers in Iraq? Pointless and purposeless. Thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis, Sudanese? Not even counted.

Memorials aren't sparky enough for today's Americans, and you can't download them to your iPod.

Nicely written. Excellent message.

:applause:

K&R

thank you

You are right. Our history is being made as we speak. Our only hope is that it can be alleviated by new leadership soon...

....work to better this country.:patriot: I just hope our forefathers efforts are never proven to be in vain. :patriot:

It's also amazing how different groups use the memorials. One group uses them to glorify aggression while others can use the same memorial to point to what mankind SHOULDN'T do.

We, as a nation, better get our financial house in order, for the sake of future generations.
Our debt is spiraling out of control. It's not fair to pass this problem on to our grandchildren.

--{i] si monumentum requiris, circumspice.

First time on the front page. I am humbled. Thanks mods!

In a few hours time, Boy Scout Troop 250 of Waltham, MA will be out an Mt. Feake cemetery in this city, along with the VFW, for an annual ritual to collect last year's worn-out flags and replace them with new ones. This happens year after year in every city and town in these United States.

Do get out there and see if you can help in your hometown. It's unfortunate that this kind of patriotism and remembrance isn't taught in schools, or indeed by many families. I have one remaining living relative with active WWII service...and my own father served for two years "in between" Korea and Vietnam. So once my grand-uncle is no longer with us, it's up to me to remember and teach my son.

That's the duty we all have...for those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Just look at the White House to see that.

As an active duty military member and a historian I really enjoyed this post. It's amazing how some people just do not understand that memorials are there to remind us of our past and to honor those who have sacrificed everything so that we can have the freedoms we now have. But its not just about honoring sacrifice, it's also about learning lessons so that past mistakes cannot be made again. Those memorials are there not only to remind us but to make us think. Every time I go to the Vietnam memorial, I walk away with not just a sense of remorse for those lost but a feeling that this should not happen again.
I teach at a military training command and the other day I was talking with some of my students about the upcoming Memorial day weekend and what it means. I was reading the messages sent down from the Secretary of the Navy and the command when one of my students asked if those that wrote the messages actually believed them. Do they actually take time and put effort into these messages or are they just words on paper. This got me to thinking, what if the policy makers in D.C. actually went to these monuments? Not drive by them, but walk up to them to reflect, to think. To stand in awe of Lincoln and Jefferson. To run your hand over the names on the Vietnam memorial or look eye to eye with a statued soldier at the Korean monument. To look from the steps of the Lincoln memorial right at the Washington monument and understand. To know that behind the Lincoln memorial and across the Potomac is Arlington. For me, I honestly don't think most of them do. Again, I want to thank you for an awesome post.

and you are correct. And, welcome to DU and for your service. :patriot:

I would add that some today are trying with small little memorials (the picture project),(boot project),(even the small cross's) that have been setup across the country to remind us of the loss in Iraq. People do forget the why of memorials. The overwhelming memorials of Washington invoke serious consideration and reflection, on a nations conscience. It is the reason for the construction, to pass to the next generation a tangible reminder & message of the past. How will this moment in history be depicted? How will it be remembered? I for one would wish this decade away in an instant if I could. Unfortunately, unlike our days as children we got to do "do overs", we now must struggle with the "why".

Far too often, we fail to see the things that have happened in the past that have held this nation together over the years; sadly, these occasions have often been wars and conflict. However, most of these conflicts have, in many ways been "necessary". The Civil War is a prime example, and why Memorial Day came about in the first place.

Here in my small city in Nebraska, there are several cemeteries that have CW vets buried in them, but one has a portion set aside, with a small statue of Lincoln, well weathered and cold, that stands at the spot where these CW vets are buried. They came here after the war to find a new life in the rich soil of the Plains. They came here to leave behind the horrors of that war and begin life anew, hoping that such a conflict may never again darken the skies above this nation. As with all wars, they thought theirs would be the "last war"...for who could comprehend that other generations would wish to visit such horror on themselves.

Every year, Boy and Girl Scouts get small flags from the VFW and American Legion to place on these, and other graves of our veterans. They do this quietly and with reverence, asking not for a thank you or a nod, although we give them both. This year, we have buried 17 Iraq War soldiers in Northeast Nebraska, I have tried to get to all of these, but have only made it to 12. In the distance, Taps is heard, it's lonely and mournful notes bring tears to my eyes as I think of the lives lost, the dreams that will go unfulfilled.............the pain a vet feels for his fellow servicemember.

Someday, those notes will play over my remains, a flag will be folded into the tradition tricorn and handed to my son....a tear will well in the corner of his eye, and I pray that he will remember me as a good father and a recall that I had said that wars must end, and I pass that responsibility to your generation.

:patriot:

:patriot:

:patriot:

thanks for sharing :hi: