Memorial Day
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 - Early Morning
So yesterday was Memorial Day in the United States and I have been searching both inwards and outwards as to what I really wanted to write about on this occasion. On Friday and Saturday, I spent some time searching the Web for information on how Memorial Day came to be. I found that there really is no clear answer. Our country was still getting over a Civil War that had ripped both the nation and individual families apart when in many towns such as Boalsburg, PA and Waterloo, NY loved ones in the 1860's began honoring their war dead by decorating their graves with flowers. Hence Decoration Day which eventually led to Memorial Day. Throughout the weekend, I searched outside for both historical facts and inside to see if I could actually feel anything different from any other day or weekend.
On Saturday I had a wedding and reception to attend. My wife went to the wedding with other family (I promised to go to the reception in the evening with her) while my five year old and I stayed at home and painted a white plastic dinosaur we had purchased many months before on a trip to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Saturday - 11:30 am
As we laughed and fought for creative control over different parts of Tyrannosaurus Rex, our mixing wet paints congealed into a kind of blue-green and brown monster with red bloody accents that were probably closer to being realistic than I thought we could have achieved when we first started. While he was having his peanut butter and jelly sandwich on slightly warm but not toasted white bread, a child in Iraq was trying to fall asleep despite gunfire whizzing by his house, and a child here in the USA was going to learn what the words "ultimate sacrifice" really mean as he learned of his mother or fathers demise in the line of duty. To this child Memorial Day will always be about memories never made and neither I nor anyone else will ever know their sense of loss... but is it my duty to at least try to feel something on their behalf?
Saturday - Evening
The Bride was beautiful and the Groom handsome. They were so fortunate that they had two services. Wow, a Christian and a Hindu wedding! When I was growing up an interracial marriage was a rarity and required true courage - today they are commonplace and almost expected. So here in these ceremonies and these young people's aspirations, two thousands of years old cultures, religions, peoples came together in an embrace that will hopefully endure through the forces that try to pull them apart. On the other side of the world, misguided youth who have radicalized the worlds youngest and largest religion, fight for their identities with a reckless abandon that no amount of guns or mortars or missiles or barricades will be able to stop.
My five year old looks dapper in his Bollywood inspired suit and his patent leather shoes. As always, he charms all of the twenty something ladies of all nationalities and shades of hair; enough so that he even gets some of them to play freeze tag with him on the large porch outside of the reception hall in their 3 inch heels. He comes running up to me with the six year old Italian American girl he has befriended and proudly proclaims, "DAD, we're drinking Shirly Temple's. Later that night, after a successful day of charming and cake eating, he drifts off to his kaleidoscope dreams and I return to my laptop to read the news of the day and think more on what the meaning of Memorial Day should be.
Sunday - Past Midnight
A big earthquake has killed thousands in Indonesia; many children too, of course. Some idiot on a cable news network talks about donor fatigue; another somewhat lesser idiot shows pictures of an ancient Hindu Temple that has succumbed to the shaking in this mostly Muslim country. Frankly I too am tired and I turn on the the air conditioning for the first time this season and sleep as both soldiers and citizens suffer in the intense heat of Baghdad. The soldier burdened by suffocating body armor to protect him/her from the rage of a population that has no electricity, and therefore no respite from sweltering temperatures and broken promises of freedom and a better life. Memorial Day has still not hit a nerve here, though.
Sunday - All Day
There are more parties to attend and we even have time for a quick splash in the still cold waters of the just opened swimming pool. At night my friends and I go out for a drink and curse the waiter because he forgot to bring the french fries. We have chosen to sit outside (against my wishes) and the characterless smell of a suburban parking lot fills my nostrils. No there is no smell of burning diesel or burning flesh from the latest detonation of an improvised explosive device. The alcohol helps to numb away the weariness of a busy social schedule. Oh, how a young man from Ann Arbor, Michigan would probably kill for the quenching powers of a Long Island Iced Tea as he thanklessly patrols a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, trying to keep at bay Shiite death squads from exacting revenge for years of repression from Saddam's tyranny. Am I feeling Memorial Day yet?
Monday - Afternoon
Monday, the shortest and last day of the long weekend includes a cookout on the backyard barbecue and more swimming. The president gave a speech and rightfully thanked the loved ones of all deceased soldiers from all wars for their service to the country.
"In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly: because we know the costs of war," Mr. Bush said. "We have seen those costs in the war on terror we fight today." (New York Times: Tuesday May 30, 2006)
He spoke these words from Arlington National Cemetery.
Tuesday - Again
As I reflect on my entire weekend that has gone by, I am not so sure that we (I should say "I") do know the "cost of war." Do not get me wrong. I am not sitting here naively feeling guilty that I had a wonderful weekend with my family while there was so much conflict elsewhere. Those who serve our country in the military do so by choice and the rest of us serve it in other productive ways. The only difference is that we have much less at stake than them.
So how does one feel Memorial Day? Unlike past wars where there were higher casualty figures, relatively few it seems have been touched by personal loss. Also, there has been no financial price as of yet. Of course it will come. This war is basically being fought with borrowed money. Instead of raising taxes on all, and not just the rich, or cutting spending on stupid pork barrel projects to pay for this war, we defer to the future any financial sacrifice we may or may not make for this war.
How does one feel this war or any war? Maybe I should be asked to give up a days or a weeks pay for a fund for the families of the fallen. Will I feel then? Maybe, yes... some financial squeeze and some shuffling of bills can be painful. But it is an artificially induced feeling, really. Maybe volunteering to help a fallen soldiers family in some aspect of their recovery; you know, that's probably not a bad idea....but wait; for all of the empathy and sympathy that I can offer will I truly be able to convey a feeling or understanding that would come across as anything more than a misguided and hollow intrusion. I do not know. I have not volunteered yet and maybe I should.
And maybe that's just it. I can see another's pain but will never feel it. I can never really know the cost of any war until it costs me someone dear. And maybe, so it is with all others as well... for if we actually could feel another's anything, we may not have occasion for Memorial Day at all.
So yesterday was Memorial Day in the United States and I have been searching both inwards and outwards as to what I really wanted to write about on this occasion. On Friday and Saturday, I spent some time searching the Web for information on how Memorial Day came to be. I found that there really is no clear answer. Our country was still getting over a Civil War that had ripped both the nation and individual families apart when in many towns such as Boalsburg, PA and Waterloo, NY loved ones in the 1860's began honoring their war dead by decorating their graves with flowers. Hence Decoration Day which eventually led to Memorial Day. Throughout the weekend, I searched outside for both historical facts and inside to see if I could actually feel anything different from any other day or weekend.
On Saturday I had a wedding and reception to attend. My wife went to the wedding with other family (I promised to go to the reception in the evening with her) while my five year old and I stayed at home and painted a white plastic dinosaur we had purchased many months before on a trip to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Saturday - 11:30 am
As we laughed and fought for creative control over different parts of Tyrannosaurus Rex, our mixing wet paints congealed into a kind of blue-green and brown monster with red bloody accents that were probably closer to being realistic than I thought we could have achieved when we first started. While he was having his peanut butter and jelly sandwich on slightly warm but not toasted white bread, a child in Iraq was trying to fall asleep despite gunfire whizzing by his house, and a child here in the USA was going to learn what the words "ultimate sacrifice" really mean as he learned of his mother or fathers demise in the line of duty. To this child Memorial Day will always be about memories never made and neither I nor anyone else will ever know their sense of loss... but is it my duty to at least try to feel something on their behalf?
Saturday - Evening
The Bride was beautiful and the Groom handsome. They were so fortunate that they had two services. Wow, a Christian and a Hindu wedding! When I was growing up an interracial marriage was a rarity and required true courage - today they are commonplace and almost expected. So here in these ceremonies and these young people's aspirations, two thousands of years old cultures, religions, peoples came together in an embrace that will hopefully endure through the forces that try to pull them apart. On the other side of the world, misguided youth who have radicalized the worlds youngest and largest religion, fight for their identities with a reckless abandon that no amount of guns or mortars or missiles or barricades will be able to stop.
My five year old looks dapper in his Bollywood inspired suit and his patent leather shoes. As always, he charms all of the twenty something ladies of all nationalities and shades of hair; enough so that he even gets some of them to play freeze tag with him on the large porch outside of the reception hall in their 3 inch heels. He comes running up to me with the six year old Italian American girl he has befriended and proudly proclaims, "DAD, we're drinking Shirly Temple's. Later that night, after a successful day of charming and cake eating, he drifts off to his kaleidoscope dreams and I return to my laptop to read the news of the day and think more on what the meaning of Memorial Day should be.
Sunday - Past Midnight
A big earthquake has killed thousands in Indonesia; many children too, of course. Some idiot on a cable news network talks about donor fatigue; another somewhat lesser idiot shows pictures of an ancient Hindu Temple that has succumbed to the shaking in this mostly Muslim country. Frankly I too am tired and I turn on the the air conditioning for the first time this season and sleep as both soldiers and citizens suffer in the intense heat of Baghdad. The soldier burdened by suffocating body armor to protect him/her from the rage of a population that has no electricity, and therefore no respite from sweltering temperatures and broken promises of freedom and a better life. Memorial Day has still not hit a nerve here, though.
Sunday - All Day
There are more parties to attend and we even have time for a quick splash in the still cold waters of the just opened swimming pool. At night my friends and I go out for a drink and curse the waiter because he forgot to bring the french fries. We have chosen to sit outside (against my wishes) and the characterless smell of a suburban parking lot fills my nostrils. No there is no smell of burning diesel or burning flesh from the latest detonation of an improvised explosive device. The alcohol helps to numb away the weariness of a busy social schedule. Oh, how a young man from Ann Arbor, Michigan would probably kill for the quenching powers of a Long Island Iced Tea as he thanklessly patrols a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, trying to keep at bay Shiite death squads from exacting revenge for years of repression from Saddam's tyranny. Am I feeling Memorial Day yet?
Monday - Afternoon
Monday, the shortest and last day of the long weekend includes a cookout on the backyard barbecue and more swimming. The president gave a speech and rightfully thanked the loved ones of all deceased soldiers from all wars for their service to the country.
"In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly: because we know the costs of war," Mr. Bush said. "We have seen those costs in the war on terror we fight today." (New York Times: Tuesday May 30, 2006)
He spoke these words from Arlington National Cemetery.
Tuesday - Again
As I reflect on my entire weekend that has gone by, I am not so sure that we (I should say "I") do know the "cost of war." Do not get me wrong. I am not sitting here naively feeling guilty that I had a wonderful weekend with my family while there was so much conflict elsewhere. Those who serve our country in the military do so by choice and the rest of us serve it in other productive ways. The only difference is that we have much less at stake than them.
So how does one feel Memorial Day? Unlike past wars where there were higher casualty figures, relatively few it seems have been touched by personal loss. Also, there has been no financial price as of yet. Of course it will come. This war is basically being fought with borrowed money. Instead of raising taxes on all, and not just the rich, or cutting spending on stupid pork barrel projects to pay for this war, we defer to the future any financial sacrifice we may or may not make for this war.
How does one feel this war or any war? Maybe I should be asked to give up a days or a weeks pay for a fund for the families of the fallen. Will I feel then? Maybe, yes... some financial squeeze and some shuffling of bills can be painful. But it is an artificially induced feeling, really. Maybe volunteering to help a fallen soldiers family in some aspect of their recovery; you know, that's probably not a bad idea....but wait; for all of the empathy and sympathy that I can offer will I truly be able to convey a feeling or understanding that would come across as anything more than a misguided and hollow intrusion. I do not know. I have not volunteered yet and maybe I should.
And maybe that's just it. I can see another's pain but will never feel it. I can never really know the cost of any war until it costs me someone dear. And maybe, so it is with all others as well... for if we actually could feel another's anything, we may not have occasion for Memorial Day at all.
posted by MyView at 3:05 AM
2 Comments:
A character in John Irving's excellent book "A Prayer for Owen Meany" said it well when he said "Unless you're drafting them (Americans) or taxing them it's hard to get them to give a s***." This administration has learned its lessons from the past well, and does its utmost to hide from America the real costs of this war (no photos of flag-draped coffins, no personal sacrifice, etc.) It's hard to feel when the leaders do everything they can to keep you numb. I can tell from your musings that you probably spent much more time considering the sacrifices of all of our men and women in uniform than 99% of the rest of America and I thank you for the insightful comments.
I just wanted to thank you for the thoughtful comment on my blog Beautiful Road. Support from others always lifts my spirits. I was wondering if you would share with me how you find my blog?
http://beautifulroad.blogspot.com
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