For contemporary Americans, Memorial Day has two meanings — honoring our war dead and a three-day weekend that kicks off the summer driving season. As the nation observes the holiday for the 143rd time, those meanings are increasingly in conflict.
Memorial Day is generally cited as originating in 1866 in Waterloo, N.Y., to honor the memory of those who died in the Civil War. In fact, other communities, north and south, also had ceremonies to honor those who gave, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, “the last full measure of devotion.”
In 1971, Congress switched Memorial Day, which by then had come to honor the dead of all American wars, from its traditional May 30 to the last Monday in May. The change robbed the observance of most of its original meaning. Today, few Americans bother to think about fallen soldiers on the three-day weekend that kicks off the summer, any more than they reflect on the lives of Samuel Gompers and Mother Jones over the Labor Day weekend that ushers in the fall.
Yet 2008 is a very good year to return to the original meaning of Memorial Day — and to not only honor those men and women who have fallen in the service of our country, but to ask how we can reduce the risks of still more Americans dying in future wars.
Viewed from that perspective, gassing up the SUV and heading off for a three-day road trip isn’t just an increasingly expensive luxury, it’s an act that undercuts the security of this nation for whom our veterans fought and died.
You don’t have to be a member of the “No blood for oil” crowd to understand that America’s growing dependence on oil, much of it imported from the volatile Middle East, increases the chance of this nation being drawn into more foreign conflicts. Thus, taking transit to work, walking, bicycling and car pooling become profoundly patriotic acts.
Likewise, America needs to redouble its efforts to develop domestic sources of power like nuclear power, solar and wind energy and renewable fuels like cellulosic ethanol.
Finally, in returning to the original meaning of Memorial Day, let us also honor and support the men and women in our armed forces who sacrifice for us all. Besides honoring our dead, that means better medical care and decent veterans benefits — including the new and expanded GI bill — for the living.
We can do no less for those to whom we owe so much.
