Memorial Day 2011

This image, a watercolor by artist Steve Mumfort just brings home the meaning of Memorial Day for me. It pictures a cadre of soldiers who have just heard of the death of a colleague. Of course, scenes of sorrow will radiate outward from the battlefield hospital, to a city or town, to parents, significant others, wives, husbands, grandparents and on out into the community as a whole.

I can't remember where I heard it--it was a remark in passing, perhaps on the radio or on a blog, but someone was thinking of what Memorial Day meant. Noting that it was even hard to get people to go visit the graves of their family members who had passed, many neglected this day of thanks and remembrance for those who gave their lives to help preserve freedom for our country and to protect the innocent in other countries.

If we forget that war = death, and neglect the true meaning of Memorial Day, we might get just a little too casual about the making of war. This may have already happened; with the lack of a draft, a very tiny percentage of people end up serving in the armed forces. Thus we are not touched by the losses of life to the violence of war. The horror of war, even though often transmitted through vivid pictures and video, is distant. It seems like a video game, not something real. No, it is all too real. When people are killed in war, they bleed real blood, have real limbs torn off, and die real deaths--they are not here any more. We must realize that war can be the end of humanity to paraphrase JFK.

Never forgot what it costs to be free. That is what Memorial Day is for, to remind us not to forget.