What is Memorial Day?
"Is Memorial Day a hardware sale? is it a good price on a garden pail?, is it the opening of the swimming pool?" Every spring we celebrate this holiday called "Memorial Day" which traditionally marks the beginning of summer. The coming of the summer is a celebration of our freedom. This three-day weekend we are free to do anything we want.
We are free to come and go as we please, to play golf, to ride in our cars, go the beach, to go visit family and have picnics, to go up North to our cabin. Our Freedom is fantastic, we claim our freedom; we take our freedom as a natural extension of our incomparable lives in the United States of American. These are Freedoms we exercise everyday. We love our freedom. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. Traditional observance of Memorial Day has diminished over the years. This day, Memorial Day, is about honoring those Americans who died while defending our Nation and its freedom. It is only fitting that we meet here on the day of National Remembrance. It is time to pause and consider the true meaning of this holiday and our freedom.
So let us take a moment out of the celebrations to reflect on the true meaning of Memorial Day, and the sacrifices that our veterans made for each and every one of us. This day - Today, Memorial Day, we honor those who fell from the line, who left us forever never knowing, never knowing how much they did for us. Our freedom was granted to us by the founders of our nation in the Constitution of the United States. The constitution guarantees our freedom, but what makes the Constitution a document capable of protecting these freedoms?
The veterans, every one of the Veterans who died defending our freedom took a solemn oath. They raised their right hands and said, "I solemnly swear to uphold and defend, the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, so help me god". To uphold this oath, they protect us with guns, they protect us with tanks, they protect us with low flying airplanes, but most of all they protect us with their lives.
That freedom comes with a price. That’s what the members of our armed forces do for us; they pay the price, they pick up the check so that the rest of us may enjoy the land in which we live. American men and women have stood ready to take the risks and pay the ultimate price.
Many feel the violence and tragedy of war is too high a price to pay. That is their freedom. However, in the words of John Stuart Mills "For those who deplore violence, they can rest peacefully in their beds at night because of the efforts of those who engage in violence on their behalf." These fallen veterans engaged in violence on our behalf. To ensure our way of life for everyone of us.
We can never measure the value of what was gained by the veteran’s sacrifice. However we live every day in comforts of peace and gifts of freedom. These have all been purchased for us, and we must be grateful for their sacrifice.
It perhaps captures the essence of Memorial Day, when an immigrant to the United Sates writes in a childhood remembrance,
"And during summer vacation, Dad would make a detour and have us visit American Cemeteries. I must confess that initially I found them boring. With all those identical white crosses, row after row!
After all, "So what", I thought. "The war is over, and this only serves to rehash the ugly past and to delay us in reaching our holiday destination". Until one day, in one of those cemeteries – this one in Luxembourg, I recall – my father impressed on all of us children that below every cross lay a young man who had left his beloved family in America - to fight on foreign soil - and deliver from a wicked enemy - my Belgium family - who could not defend itself. My dad said, "You can’t go by on the road - and not come in to say thank you"; and he then fell in a deep silence. She finished with "With out the sacrifice of those American boys - my family would most likely still be Belgium under Nazism or Communism. Gratitude - Gratitude! This is what my dad was teaching me"
And that is what we have to display as a nation - Gratitude,
Gratitude for these heroes who showed the last full measure of devotion to us and our nation.
The hero’s we remember never really set out to be heroes. Each loved his life as much as we love ours. Each had a place in the world, a family waiting and friends to see again. They thought of the future just as we do, with plans for a long life. But they left it all behind when they went to war, and parted with it forever when they died. Each one of these veterans was an American doing his duty. Each was someone’s, brother, someone’s father, and someone’s child. Remember them; remember them ladies and gentleman - remember them all. Especially remember the pain and suffering of their families.
Every Memorial Day we gather at places like this to grasp the extent of their loss, the meaning of their sacrifice and to express our gratitude. It always seems more than words can cover. In the end, all we can do is be thankful, all we can do is remember, and always appreciate the price that was paid for our own lives and our own freedom.
It is because of their sacrifices over the generations that this great nation remains free.
Free to celebrate Memorial Day as a three day weekend marking the beginning of summer.
