Decoration Day, it used to
be called; as ladies organizations and schoolchildren went out to the graves of
fallen soldiers during the Civil War. A
long-standing tradition has been preserved and even codified now into a Federal
holiday.
Memorial Day is usually
celebrated on the last Monday in May when friends and family gather at a
cemetery where their loved ones are buried to remember them with love and
reverence. At National Cemeteries
throughout the country there will be remembrances of those who fought and died
for freedom when families and friends go to pay their respects. My mind is filled with memories past when we
visited the various cemeteries where our loved ones were buried. We placed flowers on the graves and remembered
the ones who were buried there.
It is sometimes difficult
to wrap our minds around a day like Memorial Day. Although we have been fighting a war against
terror and the men and women in the armed forces are being constantly held up
for us to show appreciation toward, there is still something distant about what
it means. We have a tendency to compartmentalize
our lives into neat little partitions that allow us to arrange our days and
lives into distinctly different blocks of activities. We create separate emotions, feelings and
values for each of the activity blocks.
Sunday morning is "church" time; the activity is to "go
to church." Monday through Friday from
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. is "work" time; the activity is stuffed with
"doing our job." We behave in
the "expected" ways that are dictated from the "activity
block" in which we are engaged at the time.
Memorial Day is sometimes
relegated by some to be an activity locked in our activity block labeled
"Memorial Day." When the time
comes we take it down from our shelf of daily activities, take out the
activity, dust it off since it has been a year, and go through the expected
motions so we can conveniently repack that activity block at the end of the
day. Expending the least amount of
effort we can, and getting it over with as quickly as possible, we move on to
our next activity block forgetting the substance of the act in favor of the
form.
Memorial Day should be
different. Rather than unpacking the
activity to glibly move through it without thought, we might rather make a much
richer experience by really examining the circumstances and cost that surrounded
the life of that man or woman who paid the ultimate price to give us the
opportunity to create those activity blocks in the first place.
Those men who were caught
in a cross-fire between sworn enemies who were dropping mortar shells on their
position creating a fire storm of molten rock and phosphorus rain dropping
death and terror on their heads continued moving forward to establish a barrier
against evil.
Those medics, nurses and doctors
close to the 38th Parallel continued their duties at the operating tables
trying to save the lives of soldiers wounded in battles gave their own lives in
America's struggle against communism.
Those young men who laid
in the forest as the rain trickled down their helmets trying to remain quiet as
enemy "regulars" marched down the trail beside their foliage cover
caught sight that culminated in a battle eventually won by the Americans, but
not without heavy causalities.
Those men and women who
were weighted down with battle gear, in desert heat reaching 110 degrees in the
shade as they rode in their vehicle across the sandy roads watched as eighty
yards in front another vehicle containing their friends suddenly explodes and
shoots straight up in the air in a ball of flame. With roads filled with IEDs waiting to
capture the unsuspecting vehicle, they each continue on fulfilling their duty
and chipping away at the forces of evil headed by a dictator who has vowed to
take away the freedom from Americans whom he calls the "Great Satan."
What were those men
and women thinking at those very moments? Did they
see the faces of their wives, kids, parents?
Did they see their high school friends they had just parted company with
only a few short months prior to their current experience. Were they terrified, with hearts beating
knowing that each breath might be their last?
Did some experience the loss of their closest comrade in arms taking
their last breath just inches away? The
one thing each one had in common: They
were each giving their all for those back in the States for them to be able to
experience the freedom of never experiencing what they were facing at that moment.
Freedom. Such a word; freedom. It seems like Memorial Day and Freedom might
be the same word. Without Memorial Day,
and the ones behind that Day, there would likely be no freedom. We should never be so routine with our
actions as to forget the real meaning of Memorial Day and the freedom that has
been given to us by those who paid the price with their lives.
Jim Killebrew