As it is with all holidays, Memorial Day departs from its original intent over the long holiday weekend.
For many, it’s an extra day off work. For kids, it’s the first weekend of freedom after a long school year. For almost all of us, it is a weekend filled with pleasant diversions — the Indianapolis 500 has become a holiday fixture for race fans. There will be barbecues, visits to the beach and innumerable other activities that always come with holidays.
But there are 1.1 million reasons that we should not forget the holiday’s original meaning and pause in the course of our busy day to soberly reflect on what the holiday represents and the debt we owe to all those for whom the holiday has been set aside to honor.
According to the Veterans Administration, 1.1 million Americans have died in military service since 1775. That’s an average of 4,545 each year over our nation’s long history. That number is not fixed, of course. The grim count increases even in times of relative peace. At any moment, at home or in some far-flung corner of the world, our half-million service men and women face what is called the ultimate sacrifice. That number may grow today. And if not today, the day after or some day next week.
As long as there has been an America — in fact, even when America as we know it was little more than a idea, Americans have died in its service.
The freedoms we enjoy today are purchased in the blood of our military.
That said, those who have fallen in service likely would not want the holiday set aside for them to be a strictly somber occasion. We suspect they would much prefer that we mark this holiday as a celebration for what they died to establish, preserve and protect.
If that is true, all of the pleasant activities we enjoy over this long weekend are perfectly appropriate.
But we should also take a moment away from such pleasures to quietly reflect on those who, as Lincoln said, gave “the last full measure of devotion.”
Theirs is a debt we cannot repay.
But we can and should remember.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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