Since I started circumambulating this morning, several people have wished me a “happy Memorial Day.” Shudder. Memorial Day is a day to remember those who died while at war. It is not a happy day. My wish is that the world will stop having wars and no one will die in combat.
From Wikipedia:
Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country’s armed forces.[1] The holiday, which is observed every year on the last Monday of May,[2] originated as Decoration Day after the American Civil War in 1868, when the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans — established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.[3] By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service.[1] It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.
Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.
Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountain areas. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather on the designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with relatives and others. There often is a religious service and a picnic-like “dinner on the ground,” the traditional term for a potluck meal in which people used to spread the dishes out on sheets or tablecloths on the grass. It is believed that this practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the “memorial day” idea.[4]
Memorial Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day; Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans.[5]
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for posting this. We need to be reminded every year, as stores hold “Memorial Day Sales” and spectacles featuring weapons of mass killing take place. The last time U.S. soldiers died in a war fought to truly defend against a real threat to our freedom and survival was World War II. Every war the U.S. has fought since then has been an avoidable, imperialist war of choice, and, in the case of the wars on Iraq, illegal wars of aggression. We can appreciate the sacrifices made by our soldiers in all those avoidable, illegal wars without approving of the wars themselves. Our soldiers have become pawns, some witting and some not, of the rapacious U.S. Empire since 1945. All politicians who intone pious rhetoric about our “fallen” on Memorial Day while supporting these endless wars of empire and war-profiteers’ profits are among the worst hypocrites alive. Mourn our avoidable, unnecessary war dead and the millions of victims of our unnecessary wars since 1945; condemn those “leaders” who caused those unnecessary deaths.
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Plus, Congress never declared War via a VOTE after WWII. Terrible. We need to hold Congress accountable for this act, not supported by Our Constitution.
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Remeber: THE WASPS.
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Honoring the WASPs.
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WASPs FINALLY receive Metal of Honor at great effort.
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Remember the 442nd.
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Remember the Navajo Code Talkers …
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Navajo Code Talkers honored.
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Camache Code Talker: A Documentary
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Thanks, Diane, for reminding us of this.
Every Memorial Day and Veterans Day I would give my students the same assignment throughout the final decades of the 20th Century (the bloodiest in history): Make a spreadsheet of all the wars of the 20th Century and all the countries that were involved in those wars and then list all the casualties… As far as they could go.
Or they could visit someone in a VA hospital, preferably a World War II vet who had been there “forever.”
Then they had to discuss what they had learned…
It helped my students understand the need for the poppies and respectful silence on some days. That work ended when Paul Vallas fired and blacklisted me for test resistance in 2000… But I continue remembering all those lessons and what the “kids” would talk about.
Both my mother and my father served in the United States Army during World War II. For Memorial Day, we would wear the poppies (which I think my Dad would distributed from his VFW Post in Clark New Jersey; we lived in Linden) and visit a few graves. I don’t think anyone in our family said “Happy Memorial Day,” because there was nothing to be happy about.
My Dad, Neil Schmidt, served as an infantryman with the 44th Division from the coast of France to the Austrian Alps from 1944 to 1945. After he and his millions of brothers (and some sisters) had “won” against the Nazis in May 1945, my Mom was just beginning the worst of the hell she would experience — Okinawa. Mary Lanigan Schmidt was an Army nurse in a field hospital on the island of Okinawa during those weeks after, for many in the USA, the war was “over.” Both my parents taught me a lot about silence and not discussing what it was all about. Both were proud of their “service,” but silent about the details of what it involved.
My Dad would only say about the Bronze Star he brought home (“for courage in the face on the enemy during the Rhineland Campaign, February 1945”), “I got lost one night and I got lucky.” When he accidentally told me, very late in life, that he had been first into one of the “smaller” concentration camps (Struhof) I was stunned. I asked him why he had never talked about it with the family: “There is some evil for which there are no words.” I asked him what he remembered of driving his colonel into that liberated camp: “The silence and the smell. The smell never goes away…”
Both came home and by 1946 were fulfilling the dream that had kept them going throughout the war (they were already married by the time of Pearl Harbor, and Dad was in the Army). They were going to work hard and have a family, at least two children (they wound up with four), a home, and all that stuff.
But it wasn’t that easy. Because of their commitment to having a family, my Dad didn’t go to college, but returned to the “service” in the Elizabeth Post Office. He never missed a day of work until he retired, having learned during the Depression that a job was precious and not to be trifled with. He taught all of us the same thing.
My Mom slowly sunk into greater and greater depression and nightmares as time went on, and only after her early death (in 1985) did I begin to understand how the very word “Okinawa” made people who know the history shudder — to this day.
Yes, this is a day to mark with silence, perhaps a poppy (if you still live in a community where old men distribute them), and some attempt to clarify what the word “WAR” means.
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Regarding Memorial Day, agree that this is not a “Happy” day though sales people and companies (esp. car dealers) have turned it into a shopping” event. As Rene A. Gagnon, one of the flag-raisers on Iwo Jima in 1945 later said: “Don’t Glorify war . . . . There is no Glory in it.” So, let’s stop glorifying war and instead honor the memories of all those whose lives were taken from them (and the lives they may have taken) by committing ourselves to ending war. War is a sin. War is immoral. War is a crime against humanity. See http://www.veteransforpeace.org
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I agree, Will.
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Exactly the reason I’ve always opposed turning September 11 into a holiday. Can you imagine being wished “Happy September 11”?
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No kidding, Dienne, right on.
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Having come really, really close to being hit or killed a number of times In Vietnam, and having read a lot of historical fiction about wars based on fact, I will not hold my breath that we will ever find a time when a war isn’t being waged somewhere on the planet.
I watched 60 minutes last night and there was one veteran who served in Afghanistan, who said every day he asks why he didn’t die instead of his best friend, and when he said this the tears were streaming down his face. I felt his loss and my eyes filled with tears as I thought of those who didn’t make it home from Vietnam like I did.
At the VA medical center in Martinez California, it says this one the side of the VA bus I see parked there: “All Gave some – Some Gave All.”
And because a lot of combat vets have combat induced PTSD, there is also a sign at the main entrance that clearly says, “No weapons allowed.” I have to always remember to leave my pocket knife in the car.
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Thank you Diane for reminding people.
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