"...thank God that such men lived."
Memorial Day is a bittersweet time for me. For most of my life, the reasons behind this holiday were theoretical - there was no personal emotional connection for me. No relatives lost in past wars, no friends who didn't come home. I honored the fallen while still having some emotional distance from the real meaning of the day.
In the last eight years, all of that has changed. Today I remember friends I never thought I would lose, comrades I wish I had known better, and young men for whom I feel responsible. And yet, despite the loss and the grief, I can't help but feel that too many of us miss the point of Memorial Day.
It is well and good that we should remember the fallen, but what we should remember is not how they died, but what they lived for. I read this some time back, and it rings even more true today, especially these two paragraphs:
We are not your sons and daughters, whom you must protect and defend. We are your sword and your shield. We are men and women who volunteer to place our lives on the line so you do not have to. We do not decide when or where we will be sent. We go. You are our advocates, not our parents.
We, your American service members, do not see the cause for which we may give our last full measure of devotion, as our nation's goals in Iraq or Afghanistan, and perhaps that is the difference. Our cause is our nation, in all her beautiful, imperfect glory.
And so, today, I remember my friends and comrades not because of the pain I feel because they are not here, but rather because I am humbled by the honor of having known such men as they. I remember the words of Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., and know them to be true:
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.