It’s still early as I write this, and perhaps the New York Times will post a headline or editorial about today being Memorial Day later today. But as I write this, there is nothing. The closest it comes is an op-ed by Drew Faust, former president of Harvard, quoting Frederick Douglass from May 30, 1871, asking “What shall men remember?”
For reasons I’ve expressed in the past and need not say again, I remember the men and women who gave their lives for their country. But when my generation is gone, will there be anyone left to remember? Will there be any left to care whether anyone remembers?
Already, so many things I believe could never be forgotten are either gone or “reinvented” in some bizarre parody of reality that flips memory on its head. Churchill was the bad guy in World War II and Hitler was the good guy? Insanity. The Holocaust never happened? Absurd. Immigrants came to enjoy our freedoms and prosperity, and put on uniforms to fight for them. Many died, and yet today some people feel no shame in baselessly branding them as gangbangers, murderers, rapists and drug dealers, even if their only crime was trying to save their family from poverty and death.
What shall men remember? Sales and barbecues and the start of Hamptons rentals? Losers and suckers who lacked the juice to get out of service? That the thing that makes America great is its devotion to freedoms, our Constitution, equality and due process and free speech? That these were the things our servicemen and women fought for, not a fat man blowing hard while milking every million dollars he can get while telling you that your child only needs two dolls and a few pencils.
Forgetting these men and women, and why they gave their lives for their country, is to dishonor them. They were not losers. They were not suckers. They were Americans. They didn’t want to die. They didn’t choose to die. They chose to fight for something that mattered, for freedom, and it cost some of them their lives. Don’t dishonor their sacrifice. Remember them. Remember why they were willing to fight even though they knew that it might cost them their life.
I remember. I thank you for your sacrifice, and I will honor it by fighting for freedom and fighting against those who would deny it.
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Scott,
Simply the best. Integrity doesn’t exist without compassion. Thank you for reporting truth to power with integrity and humor. We are in this together. Peace.
Christopher and family.
“[A] fat man blowing hard while milking every million dollars he can get while telling you that your child only needs two dolls and a few pencils.”
Trump gave commencement exercise at West Point where he warned against the dangers of trophy wives.
Kermit the Frog gave commencement speech at UMD.
So, I’m guessing UMD got first pick?
Happy Memorial Day, Scott. Try to hold onto your sense of humor.
Memorial Day is the only national holiday created by regular people. Mostly women, they chose to remember the Civil War dead, on both sides. It’s singular in history.
But now, what was bought in blood is bleeding its meaning. The language of imbecility prevails. It isn’t a useful language because it’s more of a psychosis. To that brain, nothing is allowed to interfere with the psychosis; no reality can enter. Unreal is indisputably real. It can’t be altered. So, yes, Churchill thought two dolls and a few pencils was enough and Trump invented space.
I’m glad my parents didn’t have to witness this shit.
There are still many veterans of the long drawn out cabinet wars from 2002 to 2021, and the 90s conflicts and in the circles I move in there are plenty of pictures of empty boots and other observances. The difference is the,New York Times and Washington Post ignore them, to focus on the tantrums of privileged children throwing temper tantrums on behalf of terrorists and radical environmentalists.
Skink wrote….” I’m glad my parents didn’t have to witness this shit.“…
My father was a casualty of WWII not in the physical but in the emotional/ mental illness. After being in Europe he came home and struggled with Manic depression until he died in 1979. He never lost his loyalty for the army or the country
I write all that today to say Skink Iagree I’m glad he’s not around for this.
I remember the post you wrote about your dad and his recollection of the severe and bitter cold during his time in Europe.
I took my kid to Pier 86 yesterday and made sure he shook the hands of all the servicemen who were more than happy to interact and educate him on all things military that he loves.
Happy Memorial Day.
Scott, I don’t know you other than through this blog, but I’m worried about some of your recent missives. Over the years I’ve read your views as concerns about misguided efforts of political and social extremists (on both sides of the spectrum) to break the mold of American liberalism. My sense has always been that this was founded in a fundamental optimism that a less extreme majority could reason their way to social and economic improvements that don’t undermine the principles that have allowed the U.S. to make course corrections over time that, on balance, enhance the lives of the vast majority of folks. Your recent posts have dark overtones that seem imbued with a more pessimistic view of where we stand now, and what lies in the future. There are good reasons for those concerns. But I can only say I hope this is a temporary detour, because the need for voices like yours, advancing the virtues of 20th century liberalism as the most compelling way for American society to move forward, are needed now more than ever in my lifetime.
Well, shoot. I’ve been reading you for years and came close to posting a few times, but as a stoopid pilot I never thought I would. That having been said, I gotta push back a bit here.
My 21 year old son took me out for a beer tonight at a local convenience store (that’s a thing in OR). We were talking about the meaning of Memorial Day and I was riffing on your piece as a starting point. My kid gets it.; he was talking about the concept of “duty“ with respect to your point about people that served back in the day.
The kid who was serving the beer came over at a respectful distance to listen to the conversation. He then pointed out that he was wearing his grandfather’s service pin out of respect. Then the gal stocking the shelves remarked that she goes to church only on Memorial Day, simply to pray for those that gave all.
Out here in Oregon we have no indigenous military subculture as we have no real bases (minus Mountain Home, way South). Despite this fact, when I go to college fairs to represent the Naval Academy I have kids lining up 10 deep.
I only know what I know, but I have to think that a lot of the “people these days“ stuff is based on an unrealistic remembrance of times past.
I think The Kids Are Alright. I really do believe that we have the same proportion of knuckleheads to right thinking individuals that we’ve always had.
There is a point in life where you realize good men and women died for you.
Or at least there should be.