I’m struck by Memorial Day this year, partly by seeing social media posts reminding us of the differences between Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Armed Forces Day, and then seeing so many people confused by the meanings of the three.
This year, I have a profound sense of gratitude. In Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, we were always involved with Memorial Day–placing flags on the graves of veterans in cemeteries many years, but I particularly remember the observances in Upper Arlington in the late 1980s. The VFW or American Legion (I don’t remember which) organized the ceremony, and this year, I particularly recall the presence of two “gold star” mothers–women whose sons didn’t return from World War II. They would have been in their eighties then, and are surely gone now–it was my great-grandparents’ generation who bore the children who fought that war–and they were accorded places of honor, and escorted by the veterans while we all stood at attention.
The sacrifice that so many made in the bloody conflicts of the past does not go unnoticed. My mother won’t be a gold star mother, in all likelihood, and the men I graduated high school with have lived in peace. Some of them joined the military, including my close friend Brad Klemesrud, but none did so against their will, or in the face of an existential threat to our nation. There has been war during my lifetime, and there have been combat deaths, and there have been the specters of nuclear holocaust and terrorism, but my life has been the result of a long peace purchased at high cost, and maintained at a high cost.
Founding father John Adams wrote, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
I am privileged to live in Adams’ third generation, and I am intensely grateful to those who made the sacrifices that our nation observes today.