Memorial Day Is A Day That Reaches Far Back Into History
I have some brief notes on this holiday.
On a day like today, the message is: don’t forget the real meaning of the holiday, a memorial to the nation’s troops who never came back. But there is an added dimension to that.
Most of the focus, as it should be , is on the those who were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Controversy surrounds Iraq, but no one doubts the daily sacrifice.
What is missing though is the long vision of what our soldiers gave us and how many paid the final price. Let’s take a quick look. World War One - 126 thousand dead. WW II - 406 thousand. Korea -34 thousand. Vietnam - ten years and 54 thousand. The first gulf war - 146. Afghanistan 325. in Iraq - 3400 .
Each war had a mission and in the current one, whatever you think of it, the men and women who serve conduct themselves with raw courage that few us will ever face.
There is a lot of anger about the war in Iraq, with 34 hundred dead and so many wounded. Although the war is the most controversial in the nation’s history, the men and women there put aside politics and follow a tradition that began many years ago doing their jobs under direction of a civilian Commander in Chief.Today is about those who didn’t come home. It is also about the sacrifices made going back hundreds of years.
That’s why the meaning of Memorial Day is passed on from generation to generation, from war to war, and its also the day when we put our political differences aside to remember those who never came home to offer their voices in debate.
