Memorial Day 2021 – Celebrating the End of Two Wars

 Part I

Warriors Helping Their Neighbors

Memorial Day this year has special significance, it’s the 50^th anniversary as an official national holiday that is dedicated to honor those who have died in service to their country. As such it is among our most solemn and saddest of holidays. Yet this year there are two great events to actually celebrate. First, after 20 long years, all our troops will finally be home from Afghanistan!

I have shared before my thoughts on the futility and senselessness of nearly all wars and especially this latest one, the longest in our history. (See Part II below) As a retired officer with 28 years of service and a participant in three such wars I feel some license to do so. At the same time, I pay the highest honor to my fellow vets and current members of the military who have sacrificed so much for so long.

Welcome home, troops!

This Memorial Day we have something else to recognize. While we pay homage to those who have served in the military, it is also important this year to remember the thousands of grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses and children who died in a war against a silent, remorseless enemy as deadly as any we have ever fought.

This past year has been a terrible challenge yet it also offered the rest of us a unique chance to step up much as our military does when called. In a very real sense, this past year we civilians were given the opportunity to play a somewhat similar role when we were all called to battle in a once-a-century war. With a few distasteful exceptions, like our military most of us rose to the occasion - and the end of this war is also now in sight!

I want to express my gratitude to my fellow Minnesotans who were trying to do the difficult but right things throughout this terrible ordeal like our troops do. Obviously, it’s not a perfect comparison but, for example, like the troops who face very difficult conditions for years nearly every American family made large and difficult changes that totally upended their lives. Also like our troops, who will do anything to protect their comrades, most of us accepted many new and uncomfortable public behaviors simply to protect our relatives and neighbors. Perhaps more importantly, we had a relatively small group of individuals (many of whom are among our lowest paid workers) who trudged to work in person every day - at great risk to themselves - to feed, clothe and care for us and our most vulnerable citizens. And we can’t forget the countless millions of jobs and businesses across the country that were forfeit in this war - while most of us were able to continue working.

Finally, like those in the military who make the ultimate sacrifice, we too had thousands of healthcare providers who gave their lives while trying to save others. As with the military, there is no sufficient way of repaying them for that sacrifice.

So, on the 50^th anniversary of this usually sad holiday, and even as we mourn those we have lost, there is much to be grateful for. As important, I hope we have all learned – or relearned - an important lesson from this experience. That is, there is always hope if we have patience, perseverance and are willing to sacrifice for a larger cause than self.

Finally, as we bask in the joy that two wars are finally ending, I hope we can keep alive the faint but earnest hope that one day we will no longer need a Memorial Day, at least for wars.

Part II

The Long Endless Line of Fallen Hero's

"Thoughts on Taps." 

I have posted this on several past Memorial Days because I have never been able to find a better expression of my feelings about this sacred day. To those of you that have read it before and grow weary, I apologize. To others, I hope it strikes a chord. 

“War is young men dying and old men talking. You know this. Ignore the politics.”

Odysseus to Achilles in the movie “Troy.”

I can’t listen to Taps and not tear up. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear it I always cry a little. Oddly, I’m not sure sometimes why I’m crying. Is it because of the magnificent mournful sound that so perfectly matches the feeling of saying farewell to a warrior? Or am I crying for all the loved ones left behind – the millions and millions over the years? Sometimes, I think I’m crying for something else; maybe I’m crying for  myself.

That may sound silly, or worse, completely selfish and maybe it is. Yet I can't help the feeling that ultimately I'm crying because Taps reminds me that the world never seems to change for the better. No matter how many heroes - and they are heroes - pay the ultimate price, war always demands more from us. Worse, it is always our young that it craves. Worst of all, we proudly of offer them up.

Maybe I'm sad that someone somewhere will always be able to make complete strangers kill each other for the same reasons over and over. It is like an eternal WWI battle that rages on the same, small piece of ground in perpetuity. This piece of ground is a devastated moral landscape that refuses to learn any lesson that might spare our youth. Instead one generation, like some militant Sisyphus, pushes the rock of war up one side of the hill only to have it roll back on the next. No matter how just, proud or righteous that rock is, it still remains a monument to all the worst aspects of us poor, belligerent humans. That should make us all sad.  

I spent 28 years in the military and my son has also served honorably; I am proud of our time in the service. Someday Taps will be played for both of us but it isn't that which makes me sad. It is knowing that melancholy song will need to be played for endless future generations that will always make me cry. For that I am not ashamed.