Thoughts on Memorial Day
Thoughts on Memorial Day ˇV by Larry Stout Those in the United States recognize this as Memorial Day Weekend, a federal holiday on Monday which marks the unofficial beginning of summer. The three-day weekend concept for federal holidays is convenient for commercial and economic purposes, but in my opinion, makes a mockery of the events they commemorate. It seems that we no longer honor a Memorial Day ˇV we have a nice long weekend heralding the beginning of the summer months. ... On this day, however, the code name for a thermonuclear war between the US and USSR was given, and there was NO color given, which meant a real war had begun. ... On this day, I reflect that it could be me lying in a grave in Montgomery, Pennsylvania with a flag in front of my tombstone and etched in granite on a wall in Washington DC like 58,167 others. ... As Lt Gen Hal Moore wrote so eloquently, ˇ§Here we are brothers, husbands, fathers, and sons, but there we were soldiersˇKˇ¨ Memorial Day is that one day a year when we Americans pause to reflect on those who paid with their lives to keep the United States the land of the free and the home of the brave. Somehow, to me at least, it seems like it deserves better than a day at the beach.