Memorial Day Is For The Dead
It says so right on the tin: “[Memorial Day] commemorates U.S. soldiers who died while in the military service”.
The key word in all of this is “died”, not “served” or, for that matter, “serves”. This day isn’t for anyone who ever found themselves in the military of the United States, or for those who find themselves there today. None of these truths dishonors living veterans (who have a day) or active duty personnel.
Death is different. Death is singular. Death is separate. Death is final. The point is to set aside a day in which we remember those whose service took them all the way past that final line. Whether or not they died for a just cause, they died in our name.
If you want to honor the living, do so by doing everything you can to protect them from having to cross that final line in your name. Do everything you can to make sure they are taken care of while serving and not abandoned when they are done. But don’t try to honor the living by stealing the day marked for the dead.
We dishonor the ones who went off to fight in our name and died while doing so if we just make them part of the larger serving mass. The dead are different. Their deaths inherently make them, and their service, different than anyone else who served, or serves.
Don’t lesson the import of the very fact of their deaths by making today about the living. Memorial Day is for the dead.
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