Why Memorial Day matters
A wreath laid at this morning's Memorial Day service in Westport, NY
The motivation is pretty obvious: nothing in our society warrants more respect than a stint in the Armed Forces, especially the kind of sacrifice that comes with service in a time of war.
The backlash against these incidents has been gossipy and gotcha stuff, but there’s a deeper value at question here, and that’s the importance of memory.
It is an essential component of any democracy that we push through the jingoism, the propaganda, and the political claptrap that always surrounds war.
We have to keep in mind the real meaning of the sacrifices we ask our men and women to make. We have to confront openly and bravely the motivations that drive our leaders when they take us to war.
One of my favorite writers it he Czech novelist Milan Kundera, who saw his own country swallowed by Soviet tanks in 1968.
But it wasn’t the tanks that frightened Kundera, it was the lies and self-deceptions that accompanied them. “The struggle of man against power,” he wrote, “is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
So here’s my challenge to you — and also to us who write this blog. Over the next year, we’re going to write and think a lot more about the wars now underway in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Firstly, we’re going to fight the temptation to let these terrible conflicts slip out of focus, and out of view. The men and women serving overseas deserve better.
But we’re also going to fight the temptation to accept simple, easy answers about why we’re there and what we’re hoping to accomplish.
Obviously, this kind of effort doesn’t match the sacrifice and courage of our service members in harm’s way; but on Memorial Day, remembering is the very least we can do.
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Every week NPR has a brief profile of a soldier who has died in Iraq or Afganistan. They are very poignant and always leave me wondering how that special person might have made the world a better place. Just the other day I woke up wondering what our world would have looked like if we had focused all our attention on Afganistan and had stayed out of Iraq.
At this point, the most productive thing is to look forward. I feel that our country MUST do everything we can to help our soldiers returning from tours in Iraq and Afganistan to readjust. What ever damage these wars have inflicted on our soldiers, we must mitigate to the absolute best of our abilities. That is the least we owe them and their families.
Marcus says, “They are very poignant and always leave me wondering how that special person might have made the world a better place.”
Ditto, for aborted babies.
Brian wrote: “But we’re also going to fight the temptation to accept simple, easy answers about why we’re there and what we’re hoping to accomplish.”
When you figure out ANY answers about why we’re there and what we’re hoping to accomplish, simple, easy, or otherwise, please let us know.
Oh jeesh.
I am pro-life and even I realize that not everything is about abortion lets keep this topic on subject it is a good topic.
I really hope we take a hard look at the positive and negative impacts of these missions and why we are there and how much longer we should be there.
Our military has certainly been impressive as have the men and women how are serving now and in the past.
Oh come on anon; people living in Afghanistan under and with the sanction of their government attacked us we had to overthrow the Taliban, are you honestly saying that we should just let people attack us? I guess if we disbanded as a country that would be okay, but as long as we are an actual nation you can’t let other countries attack you it is in fact one of the reasons we have a government to provide for the common defense.
That was 9 years ago, Mervel. We overthrew them. Why are we still there? And why did we go to Iraq in the first place? What are the missions and how are they helping us now, and are they worth it? Weren’t those points you made yourself?
Oh jeesh indeed.
But you said just give one reason as if these were easy answers as if this was sort of slam dunk decision to simply leave. If that were the case President Obama would have done so, why hasn’t he? We didn’t overthrow the Taliban; they are still in control of a good portion of the country that is one primary reason we are in Afghanistan.
I think the broader question is how effective can we ever be in fighting Islamic terrorism using mainly the military? Does it work at all? It seems as you point out, 9 years is a long long time without decisive concrete success.
One of tragedies of the way we honor our soldiers is that it (inadvertently, I hope but am not sure) leaves the impression that the only way you can render service to your country is to join a force who’s main means is violence. I accept that violence is occasionally necessary and believe it is right to honor the sacrifices ordinary soldiers made, since the controversial stuff is nearly always done by the politicians. Still, I wish we lived in a society that place more value on serving your country and community in ways that build and help other Americans. Is it possible to wish we valued other forms of service without devaluing the very real service of soldiers?