I struggle with Memorial Day

[cmort666]

We were watching a baseball game on TV today and one of the talking heads said "Have a Happy Memorial Day"...yeah I know a couple of posts up someone said they mean well....
There are 58,300 names on the Vietnam Memorial wall who prevent ME from having a "Happy" Memorial Day. Even if they mean well.....
A "respectful" Day, a Solemn Day,,,,,, not sure about a "Happy" Day.

Now Veterans Day,,,, That's different, that's for the living. Have a HAPPY Veterans Day for sure

I draw a distinction between "dumb" and malicious and hateful.

Don't worry. If you look, you'll find plenty of the latter.

 

[Muss Muggins]

I posted this comment in a similar thread that apparently didn't have legs. I mean no disrespect. This is how I feel, and I believe I have the standing to feel this way. Everyone mourns in their own manner, and I am not one to call people out about the manner in which they conduct themselves in matters of importance. (Just took the chicken off the grill, watching Heartbreak Ridge, beer still cold and company still welcome. What an awesome day . . . )

I drink beer and grill outside, listening to baseball and watching the war movie marathons on AMC and TCM. In doing so, I honor those who gave their lives that I may act like that. Had I died in service of my country, that's what I would want the living to do . . .

 

[STCM(SW)]

"A "respectful" Day, a Solemn Day,,,,,, not sure about a "Happy" Day.

Now Veterans Day,,,, That's different, that's for the living. Have a HAPPY Veterans Day for sure"

Hey, some people mean well even when they don't know what it's about.
Had that said to me several times since I wear one of the caps of ships I served on most of the time or my Retired MCPO cap.

 

[Muley Gil]

Confederate Decoration Day started in the spring of 1866. In 1868, General Logan US Army, head of the GAR, felt that Union casaulties should also be honored.

Now, all American service deaths, from the Revolution forward, are remembered on Memorial Day.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Memorial_Day

 

[LVSteve]

This is why I struggle with Memorial day. Because of my proximity to the military, I just expect everyone to have similar familiarity with the military. It's hard for me to come to the realization that there are millions and millions in the US that have had no contact at all with the military.

Believe it, and also believe that a substantial proportion of those millions have no wish to ever have contact with the military.

It's pretty much the same in the UK. Many years ago at a dinner party one of the guests asked a guy who worked in the UK Ministry of Defence how he justified his job. I overheard this and laughed out loud. The questioner was not best pleased and requested I explain myself.

Here's what I told him.

"That's easy, you justified his job by asking the question. You live in a country free enough you can ask. Try that in the Soviet Union and you'll get the 3 AM knock and a trip to the Gulag while your children are removed for reeducation. Try it in a country run by a right wing junta and you will be made to watch your pregnant wife abused before she is killed and you would follow shortly afterwards."

The MoD guy had a straight face problem and the questioner beat it shortly after the encounter. The host later described the guy as a typical hypocrite, public socialist but private capitalist. He worked pulling dodgy deals in the city of London on the backs of those who kept his nation safe. That's special!

 

[cmort666]

Believe it, and also believe that a substantial proportion of those millions have no wish to ever have contact with the military.

What I've found through personal experience is that there's a certain segment of the population which lives a safe, trite life consumed with trivial matters.

In matters of personal and national defense, they're simply incapable of imagining that there are people UTTERLY unlike them and their hipster friends, people who don't solve their differences with catty remarks and shunning. They simply REFUSE to believe that there are people who will solve an argument with a straight razor... or a Panzerarmee. They call people who know better "paranoid" or worse. Of course when they run into a Charles Manson... or a Joachim Peiper, the result is foreordained.

 

[rwsmith]

I'm Mr. 4F

Just because I didn't serve doesn't mean that I don't greatly appreciate the job that so many have done and often at the cost of their lives. I gravitate toward people that have 'been around' hoping I will soak something up and our vets have 'been around' more than anybody I know. My Dad was in Korea right after WWII, my maternal Grandfather was in France in WWI, my bro was in the Air Force. My FIL was in very nasty business in the Pacific in WWII. Our friend Stan was on Iwo Jima. My old neighbor was a tail gunner with two Purple Hearts, another a B-17 pilot that was shot down. I could keep this up for a good while. Charleston has always been a 'military' town (though much less so now) and I could NEVER forget how important the military is to the history of this country, especially those who gave it all. Sorry so many people are 'stupid cool' nowadays. I may not be cool, but I ain't stupid.

 

[LTC]

2016 is my second Memorial day without my personal, family connection to WWII and his part in it. Pop survived the war, but sacrificed his youth to serve his country.

Our family has been lucky. Pop, my older brother and I all served. All without causality. Memorial day is a day for sober reflection and to thank God that what could have been wasn't.

Keep those departed in your heart and on your lips. As long as we speak their names and recount their deeds they will not be forgotten.

LTC

 

[vito]

Times have indeed changed. Growing up in the aftermath of WWII, with every one of my uncles having served during that war, and ironically only my Dad not serving (drafted late in the war and the war ending before he was inducted), all of us boys dreamed of being soldiers. We knew instinctively that it was the soldier (and sailor, and airmen) that saved our nation from the Germans and the Japanese, and saved the world as well. We played "war" not out of any bloodlust but our of patriotism, imagining ourselves having the same diligence, bravery and determination that our older relatives demonstrated just a few years earlier. When I got a bit older I aspired to attend the U.S. Military Academy, but alas, my eyesight disqualified me. But I enrolled in ROTC in college and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in 1965, then served on active duty until the summer of 1990.

For much of the time that I served we had a draft, and military service and all that went with it, including the understanding that at any time those of us in uniform could be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, affected most of the population. Everyone knew someone in the service, or at least someone who served, or at least was at risk of being called to serve. While we may have a better military with the all volunteer concept, a side effect was the virtual separation of the military services from the general community. The decreasing size of our military has meant that even fewer parts of the community have any personal connection to the military services in general. Our military is becoming, to some degree, like the French Foreign Legion; a force under the control of our government but apart and distinct from the rest of the population.

Unless and until we revive the concept of a service obligation as part of growing up with the advantages of being a U.S. citizen, and thus re-integrate the community into the military culture we will continue to see this problem grow and fester.