Memorial Day 2017
Sunday musings…
“We can’t guarantee success [in the Revolutionary War], but we can do something better. We can deserve it.” –John Adams
It’s Sunday, Memorial Day weekend. In the CrossFit world that means the Pacific, California, and Central Regionals are on, CrossFitters present in full force on site or online. Here in NE Ohio the playing fields are choked with youth soccer players and their parents. The NCAA lacrosse final four takes place this weekend as well, an annual bonding event for the White family. Talk of courage and courageous feats will fill the air at all of these events and countless others as America takes a long weekend off, our bonus day always falling on a Monday.
Do you know the history of Memorial Day? I sorta did, but like so many of us I admittedly got it a little confused with Veteran’s Day. It turns out that Memorial Day is actually one of our longest-running national days of remembrance. Originally known as Decoration Day it dates back to just shortly after the Civil War, created to honor the brave and noble who gave their lives while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day was renamed and designated an official national holiday in 1971 under then President Nixon. On this day we as a people are called to remember and honor our war dead.
Courage is a hard concept to understand. So, too, heroism. They are terms that are rather casually tossed around in circumstances that seem rather tame in comparison with war. Have you seen the movie “Hacksaw Ridge”? It’s kind of hard to get all that excited about the exploits of, say, Arsenal in the FA Cup finals, let alone call what any one of the players did “courageous” or label them a hero after watching that movie. Like so many of us my only knowledge of war comes to me though films like “Hacksaw Ridge”.
While many in my family and in my circle of friends have served we have no war dead to memorialize. How then to approach Memorial Day in a more meaningful way? Honestly, this is the first time I’ve ever really thought this deeply about the day. Perhaps I’ll take the Man Cub for a walk and visit one of the many monuments in the area. He’s a bit young yet, but maybe we will talk about courage and honor and sacrifice in the pursuit of a noble goal. My friend Paul, a retired Navy airman uses the day to honor anyone who was in the service and has passed, another very reasonable way to use the day for observation. I plan to make this Memorial Day a time to reflect on what I can do to deserve the successes that have come to me, to us, from the sacrifices of those who died in the service of our still young country.
And hope that this will be enough.
Go to sleep,
peaceful sleep.
May the soldier
or sailor
God keep.
On the land
or the deep.
Safe in sleep.
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 11th, 2017 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Crossfit, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.