It’s Memorial Day, and I should be choosing an uplifting and patriotic image like an American flag to accompany this post. But I’m feeling more than ordinarily cranky this morning, so I’m using this image of an old man shouting at birds and the rain. That’s me, alright.
Set aside my irritability for a moment. I am profoundly grateful to the thousands of Americans who gave their lives or lost their limbs in wars to win independence, end secession, conquer fascism, contain communism, fight tyrants and terrorists, and make the world a better place. Their sacrifices have given me the gift of freedom, comfort and prosperity.
I think of my mother’s cousin Mark, long deceased, whom I remember as a taciturn man who never got married and lived with his mother and uncle until his dying day. He was severely wounded at Iwo Jima when a Japanese artillery shell destroyed the halftrack he was riding in. He was the only soldier to survive. He never cared to talk about his experience.
I think of my childhood best friend’s father who witnessed terrible things fighting the Germans somewhere in eastern France… and never cared to talk about them. I think of my own father who was undergoing basic training when Emperor Hirohito agreed to Japan’s surrender, and I am thankful that the nuclear bomb spared him from participating in an inevitably sanguinary invasion of the Japanese homeland.
I don’t need a Memorial Day to remember the sacrifices of men like Mark and my friend’s father. Almost every day — literally, almost every day — I think about those who died for our nation. Almost every day, I contemplate the blessings they made possible for me and all other Americans. And how we fall short.
I am acutely aware that I have never been called upon to give up much of anything — other than taxes — for my country. I didn’t volunteer to serve in Vietnam when I turned 18, and the draft was winding down. I pursued a fulfilling career in writing and journalism. Now I have reached a phase of life at which I can enjoy retirement, traveling with my wife, spending time with grandchildren, and writing novels that few will ever read.
But that would be self-indulgent at a juncture in history when our society is falling apart and forces of nihilism are assaulting the way of life that I cherish and wish for my children and grandchildren.
I will never have to make the kind of life-altering or life-ending sacrifices that so many Americans have. But Memorial Day is a reminder to relinquish at least a little of my ease and comfort to use the one skill that I possess — writing — in defense of the liberties and way of life that so many have died for. And today I redouble my commitment to do so.