This weekend marks the unofficial start of summer — a three-day holiday filled with shopping, picnicking, outdoor sports, arts and leisure activities. Parades will feature children marching behind various and sundry banners, showcasing the wide range of activities and organizations available to contemporary youth. Outdoor swimming facilities will open for the first time in nearly nine months, and lamp poles, buildings and homes decked with flags and red-white-and-blue bunting will seem to confirm the weekend’s festive, celebratory atmosphere. While enjoyable, such atmosphere threatens to obscure the solemn, sacred purpose of Memorial Day, and it is imperative that we recall that purpose and actively teach it to our children.
The origins of Memorial Day are rooted in the American Civil War. During those tragic years, individual towns began observing “decoration” days on which fallen Civil War soldiers were commemorated and their graves decorated with flowers. Following the war, May 30th was designated as a national Decoration Day, and the holiday remained a remembrance of Civil War dead, until World War I, when the observance was expanded to honor all members of American military killed in combat. Over time, Memorial Day became preferred to Decoration Day as the name of the holiday, and it has rightfully become an occasion to recognize all who have served our country in uniform. But the core purpose – honoring the men and women who gave their lives in service to our country – remains unchanged.
Remembering and honoring their sacrifices is right and proper, an obligation each American owes to those men and women. But it is also an obligation we owe our democracy and our children. A just society must contemplate, grapple with and be ever aware of the service and sacrifice of its veterans and fallen military. Each life is a precious and sacred price paid for the self-determination and democracy we cherish. While we enjoy the youth, freedom and festivities that accompany this weekend, we must recall the lost youths who never came home and whose enjoyments of such freedoms and festivities were cut painfully short. Recent years and world events have seen their numbers expanded yet again. We must remain mindful of their sacrifices — the precious costs of all we enjoy – so that such losses do not become hidden from our conscience, and so we may ensure that our national decision-making does not discount or obscure these true and terrible prices.
While enjoying the extended holiday weekend, please plan to actively remember and share with your children the real meaning and sacred purpose of Memorial Day. Visit the War Memorial monument on Main Street (in front of Jesse Lee Church) and explain what it means and whom it commemorates. After the parade, attend the memorial ceremony in Ballard Park. Explain that many of those we remember this day were just beginning their lives, barely removed from high school and the joys of youth. And thank those living who did return. Remember and teach.
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The Ridgefield Democratic Town Committee supplies this column.