My parents were both veterans of World War Two, they met in the hospital where my mother worked and where my father was taken after he was wounded. While neither of them were particularly attached to the military (my father was rather humorously cynical about it, my mother belonged to anti-war groups) they always made a special occasion of memorial day. But they never turned it into a patriotic thing, it was always a more general day to remember all of our dead family and friends, the dead of all of us.
I'm finding that this year, the first in my long life without either of my parents is especially difficult. I hadn't thought it would be but it is. So I'm not going to be writing anything special today or tomorrow. I will repost a few things.
Memorial Day should be a memorial: for the dead. It is not for the living.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to skip (again) the Memorial Day special on PBS. I'm not much for rousing music, and the whole idea of "honoring the troops" offends me. They don't protect my freedom. My freedom isn't given to me at the end of a gun or by a drone operator. I don't even think we should have a standing army.
There is a lot of screaming going on at Salon because Michael Kinsley dared insult the great god Greenwald, who bravely revealed what (as many there pointed out) we already knew. I'm offended by the national security state, but more so because of the military we continue to support around the world, not because NSA might be using an algorithm to track my text messages to my daughter (and I wonder what kind of results they're getting. My daughter has my sense of humor.)
Memorial Day is to remember those we have lost. It is a solemn occasion. I'm sorry yours is painful. I understand.
Pax.
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