Memorial Day

The beaches, lakes and parks of the States are filled with people escaping for their three day weekend.  This weekend starts my own vacation, so I am right there with the masses.  Stores have marked down prices to attract buyers.  Churches today have low attendance.  Grocery stores have stocked up on hamburger meat, hot dogs and the buns that attend them.  In Vestavia Hills and Homewood, Alabama, American flags fly all along Highway 31.  Twenty years ago, on Memorial Day, I flew for the first time.  I flew from Atlanta to Portland then to Nagoya, Japan.  It was the perfect day to fly, you see, as my family were all off work that day so they could wave me off.  A little more than a year later, and I was back on American soil and have called Alabama home ever since.  As I sit writing, the beach out the window is filled with tents, umbrellas, coolers and radios.  I’ve seen kites, floaties and swimsuits today along with sunburns a plenty. 

But if you watch on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media, you will find the ones who remember what this weekend is all about.  One of my friends changes her profile picture to one of her dad as a (very) young man in his new Navy Blue’s, ears sticking out.  Another friend’s father was on the Beach at Normandy.  He was little more than a kid who lost many of his own friends that day.  Decoration Day is what it used to be called. Just after the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression as some Southerners call it) it was dedicated to the lives lost from both the Confederacy and the Union.  In a country ripped apart by war, slavery and hatred, it recognized all lives lost.  By the twentieth century, it was extended to remember and recognize all American lives lost in service of this amazing land. 

 

A few months ago, I was in San Antonio, Texas and my friends drove me through Fort Sam Houston.  She showed me her former home, her route to school, the PX, and the youth center.  On the way out, we drove past the cemetery.  I felt the weight of the cost of freedom.  But it didn’t end.  The more we drove the heavier it felt.  You see, there seemed to be no end to the gravestones.  The fields like the one you see, kept going.  Stone after stone, field after field.  It was overwhelming.  This friend’s father and husband are still alive.  They served without losing their lives.  Tina’s father and Marlene’s father both died old men.  But in this one cemetery, there are many who did not survive the wars and skirmishes that bought freedom for me.  As of 2008, there were over 120,000 graves. 

So, maybe instead of whispering our thanks as we bite into a hamburger or jump another wave, we should go a little farther.  Perhaps we should remind each other and teach the young that what we have comes at a great price.