Memorial Day

I’m going to be 100% honest.  I have been looking forward to tomorrow for a couple of weeks now.  But not entirely for the right reasons.  And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.  When most of us think of Memorial Day, thoughts of barbecues, pools, summer, a day off, etc. all come to mind.  And that’s fine.  But the significance of this holiday is much greater than all of that.

I was looking at Vishnu’s Facebook page yesterday, and for the first time (ever?), I scrolled all the way down to the bottom.  And that’s where I found a note he shared back in 2009.  After reading it, I knew I had to share on here.

But before I do, I want to say thank you to the servicemen and women (and their families) who risk everything to protect the freedom of our country and its people.  No words will ever be enough.  And here’s to the hope that one day the word war will forever be replaced with peace and love.

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Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we have set aside to honor by remembering all the Americans who have died fighting for the thing we like the most about our America: the freedom we have to live as we please.

No official day to remember is adequate for something like that. It’s too formal. It gets to be just another day on the calendar. No one would know from Memorial Day that Richie M., who was shot through the forehead coming onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, wore different color socks on each foot because he thought it brought him good luck.

No one would remember on Memorial Day that Eddie G. had promised to marry Julie W. the day after he got home from the war, but didn’t marry Julie because he never came home from the war. Eddie was shot dead on an un-American desert island, Iwo Jima.

For too many Americans, Memorial Day has become just another day off. There’s only so much time any of us can spend remembering those we loved who have died, but the men, boys really, who died in our wars deserve at least a few moments of reflection during which we consider what they did for us.

They died.

We use the phrase “gave their lives,” but they didn’t give their lives. Their lives were taken from them.

There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity – war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.

Because I was in the Army during World War II, I have more to remember on Memorial Day than most of you. I had good friends who were killed.

Charley Wood wrote poetry in high school. He was killed when his Piper Cub was shot down while he was flying as a spotter for the artillery.

Bob O’Connor went down in flames in his B-17.

Obie Slingerland and I were best friends and co-captains of our high school football team. Obie was killed on the deck of the Saratoga when a bomb that hadn’t dropped exploded as he landed.

I won’t think of them anymore tomorrow, Memorial Day, than I think of them any other day of my life.

Remembering doesn’t do the remembered any good, of course. It’s for ourselves, the living. I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don’t find some new way – some new religion maybe – that takes war out of our lives.

That would be a Memorial Day worth celebrating.

–Andy Rooney

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Enjoy the rest of your weekend!