Memorial Day
My Dad always goes through the same ritual every Memorial Day weekend. He packs up the station wagon with clippers, heavy duty trash bags, a saw if its been a couple of years, and heads for the family plots. He goes to about 2 or three cemetaries, and at each one, clips back over growth, trims hedges, and tidies up the graves. Later he writes our family heritage out for our ever expanding family tree. Of the sea captain in the 1800's, of my great great grandfather who was a foriegn correspondent and newspaper artist, of my great grandmother who started a tradition in our family of sherbet and fruit to start our Thanksgiving dinners.
I don't know what my ancestors were up to during the civil war (the war that inspired Memorial Day), but its safe to bet they were somehow touched by it. Like many Americans, we have always had soldiers in our family. My dad was in the Army, my uncle was a Marine, my brother is in the Airforce. All of them have had the good luck and good timing to still be alive and well.
With all these soldiers in the family, I'd like to think that if they did die, the cause would be old age. Because honestly, if they died in Iraq, I would have a very hard time reconciling. Because we shouldn't be there. Period. If our soldiers die, it is not because the war they fight is protecting our freedom and our rights. It's not. Mr. Bush and company is doing a great job of stomping on our freedoms and rights without help from anyone else. The same bloody fighting in Iraq will continue, whether we are there or not. Our soldiers are disrespected alive by an administration determined to cut funding for veteran benefits, and forgotton in death by all but those who loved them, and those who care enough to pay attention.
That I do not honor this war does not in any way diminish their sacrifices. All these men and women, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, made a choice to face their mortality, something most of us only contemplate when we are faced with death. These people face their mortality EVERY DAY. They choose to, because, I like to think, they feel they are fighting for something larger than themselves. I honor them for it. They pass on their legacy to us. When they die, the responsibility is ours to act, to speak, to protect that which we hold most dear.
Our freedom.
I don't know what my ancestors were up to during the civil war (the war that inspired Memorial Day), but its safe to bet they were somehow touched by it. Like many Americans, we have always had soldiers in our family. My dad was in the Army, my uncle was a Marine, my brother is in the Airforce. All of them have had the good luck and good timing to still be alive and well.
With all these soldiers in the family, I'd like to think that if they did die, the cause would be old age. Because honestly, if they died in Iraq, I would have a very hard time reconciling. Because we shouldn't be there. Period. If our soldiers die, it is not because the war they fight is protecting our freedom and our rights. It's not. Mr. Bush and company is doing a great job of stomping on our freedoms and rights without help from anyone else. The same bloody fighting in Iraq will continue, whether we are there or not. Our soldiers are disrespected alive by an administration determined to cut funding for veteran benefits, and forgotton in death by all but those who loved them, and those who care enough to pay attention.
That I do not honor this war does not in any way diminish their sacrifices. All these men and women, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, made a choice to face their mortality, something most of us only contemplate when we are faced with death. These people face their mortality EVERY DAY. They choose to, because, I like to think, they feel they are fighting for something larger than themselves. I honor them for it. They pass on their legacy to us. When they die, the responsibility is ours to act, to speak, to protect that which we hold most dear.
Our freedom.
Comments