Today was Memorial Day, which as I wrote previously seems to mean beginning of summer to most (including our family). We are fortunate that way as we have lived our lives far removed from any wars including the ones that the US military has been actively fighting in the last decades. It is definitely not good for a democracy though to be able to fight wars that many of its citizens can forget.
As far as remembering goes I was surprised to find out from the New York Times that several US military bases are named after Confederate generals. At a far more personal level, on memorial day I do think of my grandfathers who also fought on the wrong side of a war. I never got to meet either of them. My Mom’s dad was a telegraph operator and went missing in Stalingrad (my Mom was only four years old at the time). My Dad’s dad had an inoperable bullet wound from which he died a few years after the war when my Dad was in his teens.
I have seen pictures of both of them and at times have tried to imagine what their lives were like. Remembering them on Memorial Day is a way to recall that above all we should strive to avoid new wars and end those currently being fought.
