Let's Hear It For the Boys (and Girls)

It's Memorial Day tomorrow...
Used to be that I viewed it as the summer kick-off, a sort of warm up to the traditional seasonal high water mark that is the Fourth of July. Call it summer's Christmas if you will....

BBQ's, the start of the summer blockbuster movie season, beach time, pool time, lazy crazy days of summer...

And I'm sorry to have to admit, I was in my late 20's before I really understood it for what it was.
It took Flags of Our Fathers, Saving Private Ryan, Taking Chance and lots of personal study before I really...got it.

Memorial Day used to be Decoration Day.
History states that in 1868, The Grand Army of the Republic (read that Union Army) established the last Monday in May as a national day to decorate the graves of the war dead. The graves of the turn-coat 'suthenahs' Confederate dead were similarly adorned but on a separate day. It took until the early 20th century for the two factions to finally unify and allow what we now recognize and celebrate as Memorial Day as a day to honor all who died in the service of their country. It's important to note that Memorial Day isn't Veterans' Day.

You see Veterans' Day honors the living who served.
Memorial Day commemorates the dead who died in service to their country.
And it is this fact that changed me.

Watching TV over the last few days, something kept sticking in my craw...

No it wasn't the fact that NCIS may or may not have killed off Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and by God CBS, if you take Gibbs from me, I can promise you it will be a cold day in H E, double hockey sticks that I watch one more program on your network. I'll even boycott any offerings you run on Netflix on principle. You can have McGee, you can take Palmer, and I probably could even handle losing Bishop, Vance and maybe even Abby but if you touch one hair on the head of Gibbs, or DiNozzo, I won't even watch the re-runs...

It wasn't the fact that NBC is ending American Idol, now if only E would follow suit and axe the whole Kardashian-Jenner freak show that is corrupting the moral fiber of this country.

And it wasn't the fact that Bill Murray appeared odd and possibly intoxicated on the last Letterman show (but Jerry Seinfeld, you were a total mensch and rocked the tux you so flatteringly wore, good on you showing the others -looking at you Jim Carrey- what really class is)

All kidding aside, what's been sticking in my craw, are the commercials...
You know the ones,
"Head on over to World of Mattresses for our Annual Memorial Day Blowout!"
"Old clunker dying, check out our Memorial Day Bonanza at Kalamazoo Rio Kia!"

Driving by the Gold Platinum Gym today, I see they are offering a special Memorial Day $10 a month for 3 months Membership.

And that's when I snapped.

I'm a person of images, it's how I view everything. I take pictures in my mind and I remember things.
A few came to mind...
 I saw the scared freckled faces of boys knee deep in water as they waded to the slaughter waiting for them on the beaches of Normandy.
I saw the trembling hands of a soldier taking one last drag on a cigarette ankle deep in a water-logged foxhole before preparing to go 'over the top' in the Ardennes.
The medics carrying bloody bodies one over each arm evacuating Saigon as it descended into chaos and burning.
Pictures of men missing limbs from the IED's planted by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The images just kept coming, I can't even tell you all of them...some too horrific to 'un-see'.
Snatches of what I'd read, movies I'd seen....

One Memorial Day weekend back in 1988, I remember being angry with my Dad. I wanted to go to the beach with friends. It sounded so great, hotdogs and coca-colas, fruit roll ups, sand in my flip flops, and my walk-man in my ears. He sat me down and said that I was old enough to understand that Memorial Day wasn't a vacation, it wasn't a day for a picnic, it was a day of mourning. All I understood it to mean was that there wasn't going to be a party that day for Jill. He made me sit and watch movies like Bridge on the River Kwai, The Green Berets, and Platoon...I sat with my arms folded and my mind closed...angry and pouting.

Some time after that my Dad asked me what I was learning in school, I told him we were doing a unit on Vietnam. He asked what I knew. I spouted off things like the Tet Offensive, Fall of Saigon dates, times, parroting what the teacher thought was the minimum we ought to know. Then he asked for my textbook, and fool that I am, I smugly handed it over. My Dad took it and read silently for few minutes. After about 8 minutes had elapsed of me sitting in silence as he read, he sat up and with a shouted exclamation threw the textbook halfway across the living room where it crashed into the dining room wall. I sat stock still, frozen in place wondering what I had done. Then Dad said, "This, this is what they are teaching you?!!".

That day, for the first time in my life, my Dad sat me down and he told me the truth. About the government, about the torture inflicted on some men, the POW's who still hadn't come home, about coming back home himself to a fractured country that never welcomed him. Even his own family never would really talk to him about the war. It was as if, he'd gone on some overseas foreign exchange program. No thank yous, no joy at their safe return, just a bunch of guys who'd given their all to their country, fought a war that wasn't 'popular' and were left to suck it up and go back to their lives like nothing ever happened.

Just the other day, I read that as late as 2004, the State of Maryland finally issued a proclamation welcoming back Vietnam Veterans.

So I hope that you'll forgive me for thinking that Memorial Day isn't the time to go buy a new car,  a new mattress, or appliance.
It isn't the start of the summer movie blockbusters.
It isn't a day for you to see if you can drink your weight in Bud...

Tomorrow is a day of mourning.
I urge you to think about those boys and girls...the ones that never came back.
Think about their wives, husbands, parents, brothers, sisters, kids...the families who will never be the same.

If you are religiously inclined, maybe take a moment to say a prayer for the families, for the country, for peace.

Take a moment of silence.

Take a moment to remember them and the fact that they made the ultimate sacrifice for this country.