From Another Decade

I wrote this a decade ago. I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.

For a lot of us today, hopefully, the weather cooperates as Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer with Labor Day regarded as summer's unofficial end. It's interesting how we've 'repurposed' two disparate and distinct observances and changed their message and meaning.

When I was a kid growing up (in the dark days of black and white TV and NO Internet) we called this Decoration Day because so many families spent some part of the day traveling to or at a cemetery honoring the grave of a fallen member of the Armed Forces (World War II, Korea, and the ongoing Vietnam War touched practically every family). We've gotten so used to having a professional armed force in this country we forget that for many years, actually until 1973, we had military conscription, usually called the draft. 

Even back to the War for Independence, we had people who would volunteer, but conscription was a process to guarantee manpower. And the draft was only for men-there were women in some jobs in the Armed Forces (WAFs and WAVEs are the two I remember learning about and I'm sorry for forgetting the others), but certainly not in all jobs and they joined of their own volition. 

We called everyone serving in the military back then 'our boys in uniform.' After the draft was eliminated in 1973 and both sexes were serving, maybe because we thought it sounded silly to say 'our girls in uniform', we instead said 'our women in uniform' and once we did that it made sense to also say 'our men in uniform.' Odd how we made men out of boys, eh? 

Today's a big backyard barbecue day and almost everyone with a product or service to sell has advertising about their Memorial Day Specials. I guess that's okay and at some level is actually part of what today is about even when we get too busy to remember.

A lot of very brave and talented people sacrificed their lives for the notion of this nation so we could cook baby-back ribs or check out the deals at the car dealerships later today. And not just the very brave and talented--a lot of very frightened, flawed and ultimately very fragile men and women died in uniform so we could complain about the price of gas and politicians we don't like and how our favorite ball club is off to slow start again and worry about what we're gonna do with the kids when the school year ends. 

If you're reading this, I can suggest another place you can go without having to get up from your chair or computer. It doesn't take very long, though, for those in uniform whose lifetimes have now ended, it will always be too short and I visit it every day, especially when I think I'm having a tough time of it. 

It's not as poetic as the lines penned by a John McCrae, but it doesn't pretend to be. We are, after all, living in the greatest country on earth with a professional armed force that, if we work the TV and newspapers just right, we hardly ever need to think about, though today would be a most appropriate opportunity to do so; but if you forget, that's okay. In a way, they fought so that, too could be one of our freedoms, but some mother's memory remains.
-bill kenny