Editorial: The true meaning of Memorial Day

When your child drives off to boot camp with the recruiter, your heart skips a beat.

Every day, news of unrest overseas, the Afghan campaign being terminated, a Navy aircraft carrier being pulled out of the Pacific to help with that withdrawal, or the Army deploying mine-resistant ATVs all grab your attention.

There are about 1.3 million active-duty personnel serving today in the U.S. military. That adds up to less than one-half of 1% of the population. They are on the front lines of our democracy.

That’s why honoring those who died defending our freedom every Memorial Day still means as much this weekend as it did after the Civil War when this national remembrance was initiated. Memorial Day became an official federal holiday in 1971.

Appreciating those who defend us has always been in our DNA.

Memorial Day “is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, is quoted as saying in 1868, according to historical accounts.

World wars have come and gone. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other fields of battle have also claimed our best and brightest.

Nobody is forced to serve these days. The draft was dropped in 1973, leaving our security up to those brave souls who volunteer for hazardous duty. That alone calls for our ultimate respect.

It’s doubly significant that we honor those who died for our country on a weekend when pandemic mandates have been lifted. We can all go out for lunch or dinner free from limitations and with the knowledge that most adults have been vaccinated. We can catch a Bruins game or attend a cookout. Hug, shake hands and laugh.

But this newfound liberty must also include lessons learned from the war on the coronavirus. Army National Guard soldiers helped feed then vaccinate those in need this past year in Massachusetts. They were out front — as usual — while most of us sheltered from this invisible invasion.

It’s been that way for generations. A few stand up to guard the many. It takes a special brand of courage, dedication and support to get the job done. Memorial Day is a time to reflect on the lives lost in faraway places from the Chosin Reservoir to Da Nang; Restrepo to Kandahar.

If you could ask soldiers lost in battle why they gave the ultimate sacrifice, they may respond as Plato did: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

That’s the essence of this holiday. But it also calls for somber reflection captured in the famous World War I poem “In Flanders Fields,” by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields. 

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields. 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2SzrbXr