A Hero Understands the Responsibility that Comes with Freedom

All those Shakespearean tomorrows and tomorrows that creep in at such a petty pace have brought us to very nearly the unofficial start of the summer, the Memorial Day weekend. 

The actual holiday is next Wednesday but we've moved its observance to this Monday so we can have a three-day weekend with plenty of time for cooking burgers on a barbecue, taking a run to the beach, watching some laps at the Brickyard, or any of the other leisure-time activities we come up with (as long as they don't involve serious thinking). 

Some of us have (grand)parents who can remember when Memorial Day was called Decoration Day and even farther back than that, when it was an attempt to honor the war dead of the War Between the States, evolving into a remembrance of all of those in uniform who sacrificed their lives to preserve our liberties.

Across the country Monday there will be memorials and remembrances and here in Norwich,  we'll have a parade from the Cathedral of Saint Patrick at noon, ending at Chelsea Parade. We live very close to Chelsea Parade and I routinely walk among the markers at Memorial Park to Norwich's war dead from the conflicts that have shaped and shaken our nation. 

It's a strange feeling, to see the monuments to the conflicts you've read about in history, but to realize the deeply personal price so many of our neighbors' families paid with the sacrifice of loved ones for something so abstract, but intensely, vital for each of us, this country we call our home. 

But it's not just their sacrifice I'd hope you'll consider as you double-check the count on the hot dogs and buns for the weekend cook-out but, rather, the price paid by so many in uniform for opportunities and privileges to which too many of us seem oblivious. Freedom has a price and each generation pays its share. 

Memorial Day is a thank you to those who foot that bill and most especially those who paid the ultimate price. If you regard it that way, it ceases to be about picnics, previews of summer, or a shortened work week and becomes again become a day to honor those whom we have lost. 

Those who gave their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq are perhaps foremost in our thoughts and hearts but we cannot forget those who are the original greatest generation of World War II, the heroes of the Korean War, the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who served so valiantly in Vietnam and the First Gulf Wars. We remember those who died in Somalia, Grenada, Beirut, and many other places across the globe whose names we cannot seem to pronounce but where we have placed our sons and daughters in harm’s way.

But when we speak of honoring our heroes, we should ask ourselves what is our responsibility to them? They gave their entire lives—we owe them more than a day. We live in a world of computer-animated GIFs online and fifteen-second sound bites on television where every earth-shaking and history-making event is replaced by the next wave of breaking news stories and our eyes glaze over and memories fade. 

We get confused but we shouldn't. Celebrities make headlines-heroes make a difference. 

And the men and women we honor and remember this weekend are heroes. 

In the words of John F. Kennedy, himself a veteran of World War II, "A nation reveals itself not only by those it produces but also by those it honors and remembers." On Memorial Day we honor and remember the men and women who died defending the belief that freedom is the most precious gift we have. 

They forfeited their lives to prove that and their sacrifice requires us to live as engaged and energized citizens of the world who merit that sacrifice, because we do. Start by voting in today's City Council election.
-bill kenny