It was a common phrase uttered across the nation over the weekend: “Happy Memorial Day.” Yet it sounds odd to Cindy Wiley of Dunwoody, Ga. Her 24-year-old son, Patrick, a Marine, is on his first tour of duty in the war in Afghanistan.
“I never really know what to say when someone says ‘Happy Memorial Day,’ ” she said. “Bless their hearts, they just don’t know. I didn’t know a couple years ago. ”¦ Before he joined the Marines, I was one of those civilians who was just oblivious to what our guys go through.”
As the United States continues to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Memorial Day Monday was a somber time of remembrance for many and a day to pray for troops in harm’s way. Yet some military families and veterans worry that there’s a growing cultural divide between families who sacrifice and serve and those who don’t.
I remember my father, a World War II vet, used to get upset when a local politician who was known for being a little “off” mentally would always run an ad in the local paper saying “Happy Memorial Day.” Back then, no one in their right mind would say “Happy Memorial Day.”
No one “in their right mind” would say it now. Blessed, perhaps, but NOT happy.
Grandmother
I caught myself saying that dreaded thing this year. I visit gravesites of veterans every Memorial Day and have spent time making and laying decorations at memorials and tombstones (in solomn commemorance of an old name for the day, Decoration Day). Yet, I said it just once with great regret. To me it’s one more reason to mark the day each year on May 30th, and not as some start-of-summer weekend.
At the American Cemetery at Madingley, just outside of Cambridge, England, lie the remains of more than three thousand American men and women who died in WW2, and there is also a memorial wall nearly 200 yards long on which are engraved the names of 5,000+ more whose bodies were never recovered in the European theatre — including band leader, Glenn Miller. The cemetery is a sacred place to which I occasionally take myself, and ought to be a primary pilgrimage destination for all Americans when visiting Britain.
It is now my practice to be there each Memorial Day, joining several thousand other Americans, joined by Britons, giving thanks for these heroes of the Greatest Generation. Yesterday was bitterly cold but extraordinary. The speeches were moving, several hundred floral tributes were laid, huge aircraft from Lakenheath and Mildenhall flew by, and just as a section of F-15s performed the missing man maneuver the clouds parted and the sun broke through. As the roar of the jets died away a lone piper played Amazing Grace, and a profound sense of gratitude filled my heart.
I don’t know what the right thing might be to say on Memorial Day, but with each passing year I am convinced that the right attitude is that of the profoundest gratitude for those generations to whom we all owe a debt that can never be repaid. Our political and social liberty was paid for by their blood.
Also this weekend the British people have been commemorating the 70th anniversary of the miracle of Dunkirk, when the little ships crossed the Channel and ferried 300,000+ men to safety. While that was happening my father was on the high seas on his way to North Africa, not knowing he would ever see his homeland or his new wife, my mother, again.
I give thanks for all those American and British 20th Century heroes and I pray for my son-in-law who will in a few months be preparing for his stint with the US Army in Afghanistan. May God give great wisdom to our leaders in such uncertain and difficult times.
Each day when I drive home from work I can see the Madingley cemetery and its massive flagstaff on the skyline in the distance. Through my mind run the words of the Pledge of Allegiance, and I find myself afresh realizing what a fortunate person I have that the United States has adopted me as one of its sons.
My feeling was that this year’s Memorial Day was different. People may not be sure about the direction of our international commitments, but respect for those who serve in the military is high. And even those who say “Happy Memorial Day!” are, I suspect, trying to express that.
“Yet some military families and veterans worry that there’s a growing cultural divide between families who sacrifice and serve and those who don’t.”
I’m not sure that’s true. Many of us know people in the military–including soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan–and we are aware not only of their sacrifice but also of how truly well prepared and exceptional these young men and women are. We’ve listened to Marines, for example, or their parents describe their amazingly arduous training, and we’ve heard them describe how this is what they want to do. These are tough people who have earned, at very young ages, considerable respect from the rest of us.
I don’t know if I’m right, but I suspect that there may be a swing back to a more reverential attitude toward Memorial Day in the future. I was at a picnic, not a cemetery, but that doesn’t mean the mood wasn’t a mixture of enjoyment of what freedom offers and gratitude for what we’ve been given by those who have served.
There must be few of us right now who are not connected in one way or another with those who have died or been wounded or served in a war zone in this century or the last. Families at an outdoor barbecue may simply be doing exactly what their Joe or Jill overseas would wish them to do–participating in simple family pleasures in a free country, won and preserved thru hard sacrifices by generations.
Thank you, Richard–
“At the American Cemetery at Madingley, just outside of Cambridge, England, lie the remains of more than three thousand American men and women who died in WW2, and there is also a memorial wall nearly 200 yards long….”
Perhaps others, like me, saw mention of this cemetery for the first time last night in a PBS program on American military cemeteries around the globe. An unusually good program–featuring bits of history balanced by tours of the nearby cemeteries. Yes, thanks–the American Cemetery at Madingley is on my list for my next trip to England. And to be there on Memorial Day would be the best.
i would like to see more mentioned about WWI, it seems to be a forgotten war.
Over the weekend I read the book The Unforgiving Minute, by Craig Mullany. It is a memoir of an infantry platoon leader in Afganistan, ending with how he dealt with death of one his soldiers. I highly recommend this book.
No. 7: “i would like to see more mentioned about WWI, it seems to be a forgotten war.”
There’s a good bit being published on the First World War, excellent military history and cultural history. And the great classics are worth re-reading: Testament of Youth, All Quiet, Good-bye to All That, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Undertones of War, Under Fire, Storm of Steel, &c.
I don’t know if the occasional “Happy Memorial Day” bothered me as much as the blatant commercialization of the day in so many retail stores. But, I don’t know if there’s any one canonical way to observe the day. For me it’s mostly a day of quiet reflection, a visit to a local (and surprisingly well-attended) commemorative ceremony in our community, and yes, a traditional barbecue to cap off the day. We got in touch with the soldiers deployed in our families (it was possible yesterday!) and remembered by name in prayer and in conversation fallen family members and friends of our deployed loved ones. That’s what we did, but the most important thing to me is to remember and give thanks by name those who have died in service to our country and our ideals.
thanks very much mr. hein, i will check those titles out.