Memorial Day is an annual reminder of Americans’ willingness to sacrifice for their country. By honoring military members who have died while serving the United States, the holiday recognizes a commitment to the defense of this nation’s ideals.
Of course, this Memorial Day — which is Monday — will be different from previous observances. Stay-at-home orders necessitated by a coronavirus pandemic have led to the cancellation of traditional gatherings and have altered travel plans for the three-day weekend. While the holiday typically marks the unofficial beginning of summer and heralds the imminent end of the school year, this year it will seem like another in an endless string of days spent at home.
Yet, the meaning remains unbowed. The sacrifice of those who have protected the United States and the world from despots and tyrants, defending the American ideal of freedom, is forever lauded. As Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan, is credited with saying: “Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.”
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 1.3 million military members have died while serving the United States. That number long has reflected the kaleidoscope that is this country, with the honored dead coming from small towns and big cities, from rich and poor, from varied ethnic backgrounds that have one trait in common — they are Americans.
That diversity can be found in the man regarded as the first military casualty of the nascent United States. Crispus Attucks, a Bostonian of African and Native American descent, was killed by British troops during the Boston Massacre of 1770 and is considered the first fatality of the American Revolution. His body lies in the famed Granary Burying Ground near Boston Common.
While the idea of honoring war dead dates back millennia, in the United States the thought of a holiday for such a purpose took root in the wake of the Civil War. At least 25 cities claim to have originated Memorial Day, and the U.S. Library of Congress website writes: “Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the Civil War’s end. Records show that by 1865, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina all had precedents for Memorial Day.”
For decades, Memorial Day was observed on May 30. But in 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, establishing Memorial Day as the last Monday in May and recognizing it as a federal holiday.
Since then, wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iraq again have been added to the list of American conflicts. Officially, more than 6,800 Americans have been killed in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations over the past 20 years.
It is fair — and necessary — to question the righteousness of war and the toll that it extracts. But we shall never question the dedication and the nobility of those who have answered their nation’s call and have sacrificed in the defense of freedom.
We are limited this weekend in our ability to honor that sacrifice while staying at home. The best way, perhaps, is to embrace the ideals that are worth defending — not just now but throughout the year. As President John F. Kennedy said: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”
