BtB "missed" Memorial Day due to the overlap with Shavuos, but it's never too late to thank those whose service and sacrifice have protected our lives and our freedom.
Nothing is simple anymore (she said wistfully). On one end of the ever-widening spectrum, we have Chris Hayes of MSNBC:
Why do I feel so uncomfortable about the word 'hero'? I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect the memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
Hayes is another one of these overgrown adolescents with skimpy resumes who try to pass themselves off as journalists and intellectuals in the Leftist media. I have no respect for him -- not as a writer, not as a talking head, not as a thinker and certainly not as a patriot. To me he represents the gutter into which American politics have descended. I wouldn't include him here except to point out that end of things, as it looms dangerously over all our lives.
On the other end of the spectrum as I see it, we have that which I keep at the top of this blog as a constant reminder, Jabotinsky's explanation of Joseph Trumpeldor's philosophy. He says in part, "do not regard a man who does his duty as a hero." This modest and transcendent statement is somewhat troublesome for us in America today, given the paucity of honor in our contemporary culture, but it defines the other end of the spectrum, and gives us a destination we can aspire to reach.
In the meantime, somewhere between these two, though closer to a Trumpeldor or Jabotinsky, we find the American patriot.
This year, I particularly enjoyed reading Ralph Kinney Bennett at The American:
.... Memorial Day is not about death.
It is about duty.
And about the ultimate limit of duty – sacrifice.
It is a time to remember that who we are and what we are as a nation unique in history has depended on our sense of duty and its inevitable call to sacrifice.
And while the particular duty–the often perilous duty–of defending our country is accepted by the professional soldier, it has often been imposed on many others and carried out reluctantly and with trepidation. For most, this duty has meant the sacrifice of time–“the best years of our lives”—and of broken bodies. But for many others it has meant a sacrifice of life itself.
It is easy to forget what those gravestones and fluttering flags mean; easy to fly on past the cemetery, headed for the lake or ball game without giving it a thought. I’ve been no better than most about this. So in recent years, I have made it a point to remember. I drive up to the Ligonier Valley Cemetery on or around Memorial Day. I park on the narrow road below Section D and walk up the grassy, flag-bedecked slope to row 4. There at my feet are two small rectangles of granite. Incised on the larger, older one is the inscription:
ALVIN P. CAREY 1916 – 1944 S/Sgt 38 Inf 2nd Div
A few feet below this monument, a newer, smaller stone, emplaced years later, bears Staff Sergeant Carey’s name and the words CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR. I never look down at those gray rectangles set against the green grass without my mind rushing back to a hot day in July 1948 when, as a little boy, I sat in a church pew transfixed by something I had never seen before–a coffin covered completely by a fresh new American flag.
The nearest most folks will get to any graveyard, let alone a military cemetery, is a file photo in the local newspaper or obligatory footage on the television news.Alvin Carey, quiet, bookish Alvin Carey, had come home....
Read it all HERE.
Thank you and Kol Hakavod (all honor) to our armed forces, then and now.
Posted by: Mannie Sherberg | Tuesday, 29 May 2012 at 04:18 PM