This time last year, we hardly could have imagined we would be engaged in another armed conflict on the other side of the world.
We could debate about the rightness or wrongness of our entanglement with Iran until the cows come home.
But let’s not — at least, not this weekend.
Our time would be much better spent remembering the 1.1 million Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country since 1776.
We must endeavor to preserve the meaning of Memorial Day.
From Gettysburg to Guadalcanal, Americans fought and died to secure freedom and a future they themselves would never see.
They include those who didn’t themselves enjoy freedom but fought anyway, in good faith, on behalf of their children and others not yet born.
From time immemorial, people have died in war on behalf of their countries. America is unique among them because virtually every mission has been tied not to conquest, but to securing freedom, either for ourselves or others.
Following his inaugural address in 1989, some snickered at President George H.W. Bush describing the American spirit and sense of community as “a thousand points of light.”
He was right. Every hamlet, every city, every village is sprinkled with Gold Stars, each symbolizing a life lost in service to this country, often in the flower of youth, in hostile and distant lands.
At the conclusion of his political career, President Theodore Roosevelt, a warrior who won a Nobel Peace Prize, shared his wish for the future: “We here in America hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years, and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men.”
Memorial Day is for the people who made such hope possible.
It is for Aaron Seesan, Jesse Buryj, Floyd Hughes, Daniel McVicker and Sharon Lane.
It’s for Nicholas Pappas, one of 1,600 GIs from the Canton-Akron area who were killed in action between Memorial Day 1944 and Memorial Day 1945.
It’s for Heath Warner, Joseph Cicchetti, Zachary Glass, Mark Peterson, and far too many other Stark Countians to list.
It’s for the 13 service members who have died in the current conflict, including Ohio Air National Guard Master Sgt. Tyler Simmons of Columbus.
We cannot, should not, allow the day of remembrance to be diluted, politicized or spun into anything else.
It’s a time to think of, and say a prayer for, the families whose lives will never be the same.
Though no words or deeds exist to assuage such a loss, they only ask that we offer some gratitude and respect for their loved one’s sacrifice.
We can do so by not forgetting that despite our differences — and there are many — we are one country, one people, sharing a single destiny.
We can honor them by considering what they wouldn’t give for just one more day at home among those who still love them, and by acknowledging they wouldn’t waste a moment of it beefing and bickering over the latest political developments.
Their sacrifice is the thing which binds us and defines us.
Their day, Memorial Day, reminds us that because they were, we are.
Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Memorial Day is not about us. It’s about them. | Goshay
Reporting by Charita M. Goshay, Canton Repository / The Repository
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