Memorial Day Reflections 2019

My 92 year old father-in-law still calls this “Decoration Day.” As long as he was physically able, he made the rounds to place flowers on the family graves in the Minneapolis area, both his own Miller side and my late mother-in-law’s Ronngren side. Though none of them died in military service, it was a meaningful ritual for him. With the family scattered from coast to coast and beyond, he is aware that no one still lives in Minnesota to continue the tradition. Though I haven’t heard him say anything about it, I expect he is aware that flowers will not be regularly placed on his grave when the time comes, and I am sure that seems a loss to him.

Though there were some earlier precedents, what we now know as Memorial Day started with the decorating of the graves of soldiers from the Civil War/War Between the States. There were a variety of practices in different locations, some more legendary than historic. Though they didn’t invent the practice, on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina, recently freed African-Americans held a parade of 10,000 people to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers, whose remains they had reburied from a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. As the years went by, the some Union Army veterans complained more and more about the younger generation. In 1913, one veteran complained that younger people born since the war had a “tendency ... to forget the purpose of Memorial Day and make it a day for games, races and revelry, instead of a day of memory and tears.” This sounds remarkably like today’s concerns that the purpose of remembering with honor those who died in military service has become lost in the three day weekend.

“Memorial Day” was first used in 1882 and only gradually (and not completely as witness my father-in-law) replaced “Decoration Day.” The tradition of poppies was started in 1920, inspired by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s 1915 poem "In Flanders Fields" that reflected the poppies that grew among the soldiers' graves in Flanders. In 1967 “Memorial Day” became the official designation of the holiday on May 30. In 1968 Congress moved it to the last Monday in May to create the three-day-weekend. Which is in some tension with the somber origins of the day. As US military personnel continue to die in recent serial wars, the three-day-weekend gets considerable pushback not to forget those who have died in military service.

For some reason, this year that pushback has stirred some unconventional thoughts in my mind. If you prefer to focus on traditional Memorial Day commemoration, you may stop here. I am not trying to upset anyone’s apple cart or engage in debate. But in light of current national discussions, I do feel compelled to set these thoughts in words for my own clarity.

One reality here is that as generations rise and pass away, what was vivid those who lived the events necessarily fades into the blur of history. The sense of personal intensity about what happened to three and four preceding generations wanes. “Never forget!” is powerful for those who were affected in the moment, but memorializations become abstract artifacts. Reconstructions of what led to various armed conflicts become decreasingly convincing, not because they were not right and real at the time, but because the issues and circumstances change and are not existentially meaningful to succeeding generations.

We even begin to see previous enemies in a different light and new relationships emerge. As the end of The Great War (that we renamed World War I after we had a second world war) and the end of World War II, who would have guessed or believed the US would have such prolonged positive relationships with Germany and Japan? To be sure there were some clear villains, but most ordinary young people believed they were serving their countries honorably when they were called up. They were detached from the machinations of their leaders. They did what they had been taught and were expected to do. In US history, we see this playing out in the efforts to understand how to remember Confederate soldiers who were killed. I think a healthy Memorial Day meditation would include how we remember German and Japanese young people who died serving their countries as they were asked. I know this line of thinking is very uncomfortable and unsettling. But I think it can yield a deeper respect for those who gave their lives in the service of this country.

·         On Memorial Day we are rightly urged to remember those who died in the service of their country. May those who make decisions that send young people to war also remember with sober respect so they do not sacrifice the next generation to hubris or greed.

·         An all-volunteer military clarifies a perpetual reality. Military personnel trust their leaders - military, political, spiritual - not to send them on foolish, flawed, futile, immoral errands. What are the options when this trust is broken?

·         We lifelong peace advocates are dismissed as predictable. Has the time come for politicians (R&D) and military people (private to general) who will speak a resounding "NO!" and refuse to make war just because some political leaders rattle the sabers and beat the drums of war?