After more than 20 years posting at The Glittering Eye, I’ve expressed pretty much all of my thoughts about Memorial Day. I think that Monday holidays dilute the meaning of national holidays, reducing their role in incorporating the actual events they were originally intended to commemorate into the common culture. As you must surely know, Memorial Day originally was a day of remembrance of the Civil War dead, particularly those who died serving the Union Army.
The last members of my direct line of ancestors to have served in war served in the Union Army during the Civil War. My great-great-grandfather Wagner participated in some of the fiercest actions in the war. He survived the war but he died young of tuberculosis which I suspect he contracted while serving.
My great-great-grandfather Flanagan also served in the Union Army during the Civil War as did my great-great-grandfather McCoy. I’m not sure about my great-great-grandfather Schneider. He, too, died young of tuberculosis but I don’t know whether he served in the war or not. My great-great-grandfather Schuler did not arrive from Switzerland until shortly after the war.
My mom’s Uncle Ed was one of the lucky few who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He had a specialty the Navy greatly needed. My wife’s father and uncles served in the Navy in World War II. All survived the war.
The single thing we can do to honor those died in the service of our country most is to ensure that no more American soldiers are killed or maimed in wars that do not make us a bit safer or more secure. We’ve had a lot of those lately: Iraq, Afghanistan after about 2002, and Libya, just to name a few.
Since 1945, the US has itself started 81% of all the wars:
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2345663/us-initiated-81-global-armed-conflicts-from-1945-to-2001
In WW I, my grandfather fought in the Ardennes. He came home unscathed. A quarter century later, my father fought over the same territory. They must have been in the same villages. I never learned what they said to each other.
I have four brothers in law who served during the Vietnam War. Two with the Marines in I Corps, one a B52 crew chief in Thailand, another in Germany. I was too old by a year for ‘Nam.
Why can’t this country learn? In our whole history, we have had only a dozen years of peace, none if you count the Indian Wars, 1607 to 1918.
Can we at least avoid another European or Asian war?