Memorial Day

May 2021

 This month we asked our writers to reflect on the meaning of Memorial Day and how it impacts them and their community

A deep respect

McKenna Snow
Class of 2024

Memorial Day for me has never been experienced through large town events, or even neighborhood events. Instead, I’ve always experienced it through my own family. I’ve grown up in a military family my entire life. I have moved all about the South, and even up in Maryland for a while, so my "familiarity" with my town and local community shifted all the time growing up.

I never connected that closely with my town in terms of celebrating holidays like these. I don’t recall really going out to some kind of gathering on Memorial Day, hosted by a local group or church. Maybe I never looked all that hard for these events, but the reality is I just never was quite connected enough to know of these Memorial Day celebrations and gatherings that are apparently common.

Instead, for me, Memorial Day is usually pretty quiet. We never invited people over to hangout for the day. Pre-retirement from the military, my dad always had Memorial Day off. Wouldn’t a lot of people like to seize this day off as some fun holiday to invite people over, to enjoy the day, treat it like a mini Fourth-of-July? That’s what I’ve heard about how other people celebrate Memorial Day.

Perhaps in other circles, that is how this day is treated. But in my family circle, it is quiet, like I said. We usually spend the day outside, gardening and cleaning up reflectively, and then we have dinner as a family.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for patriotic get-togethers that celebrate American freedom and the men who have fought to keep our country safe. They deserve to be celebrated, and patriotism is something worth throwing parties for.

But this day isn’t a mini Fourth-of-July. It’s not an alternative Veterans’ day. This day is Memorial Day. This day is a memorial for men who have died serving our country. The focus is less on the freedom we enjoy in the present because of this great sacrifice, and more on the men who made the sacrifice in the first place. Grilling hotdogs and hamburgers never really seemed to do that justice for my family. So instead, it is quiet.

Hence, my family never was about that kind of overtly joyful celebrating on Memorial Day. It just never quite seemed right. I speculate that it is because we grew up with a more intimate connection to those in the occupation that Memorial Day typically commemorates.

I watched my dad deploy multiple times growing up. He would leave for about a year at a time. Technology in the early 2000’s was still in its formative stages, not nearly as refined as we have it today, which means communication with my dad, who was far overseas, was a big challenge. Skype calls were fuzzy, hard to hear, with poor connection. Phone calls were hard to hear and text messages were sent infrequently due to the demanding, all-time-consuming nature of his job. One particular year, my dad didn’t have access to really any technology at all to reach out, and I recall my mom saying she had to handle, on her own, homeschooling five young children, and waiting in patient, but painful silence as she hoped to hear of the safety of her husband. He was able to give her updates once every couple of months, totaling about five times over the span of a year, letting her know he was safe. My mother handled this stress gracefully, making sure her children felt secure and safe, and taught that God was the greatest source of comfort in times like these. She took us to weekly Adoration, to sit with the Lord in silence, because He would wait with us for our dad. He would support my mom in times like these, when her little kids were missing their dad, and waiting for him to come back. And when we were blessed enough to have our dad return safely, He celebrated with us. He was there throughout all these deployments, walking both with my dad, and my mom, though thousands of miles apart.

But my dad didn’t always return home with everyone he left with. Some soldiers didn’t come back. Some families didn’t get to share the joy that my family did in seeing their dad walking to them in the airport after being gone for a year.

Memorial Day isn’t for us to celebrate people like my dad. My dad has Veterans’ Day to be celebrated. Memorial Day is for the soldiers who didn’t come home. The ones who said goodbye to their families before deployment, and who didn’t get to say hello again.

My dad has been friends with those soldiers. My mom has been an active leader in the Family Readiness Groups that support women whose husbands deploy, and helps carry the weight of life without them around. The connections my family has grown up with, knowing these families by name and the soldiers lost, have made me view Memorial Day differently. That is why Memorial Day, to my family, is quiet. Burgers and throwing parties isn’t what this day calls for. We remember, in quiet reverence, the brave soldiers who fought and died for our country. They deserve that kind of respect. They deserve the Memorial Day that’s been designated on the calendar for them.

Let the veterans have their Veterans’ Day, and let all the patriots share in the Fourth of July. That’s who those holidays are for. But let Memorial Day be different. Reach out to those military families you might know, and see how they celebrate Memorial Day, and how it might be celebrated differently by them. If you haven’t been moving as much as I have, and you’re more deeply engrained in your local community, try to learn the names of those soldiers from your town who have served.

Let Memorial Day be more than an excuse to invite people over and grill burgers. Let it be respectful, commemorative, and prayerful, honoring those who died serving their country, their local communities, and their families. Those men are brave individuals who heroically gave their lives for American freedom, and deserved to be honored as such.

Read other articles by McKenna Snow

Memorializing Memorial Day

Emmy Jansen
Class of 2023

If there is one thing every reader should know about me, it is that I am incredibly patriotic. I love this country. A secret dream of mine is to serve in the armed forces, but a medical condition prevents me from being able to enlist. As I sit squandered stateside, I try to foster that same spirit of servitude and pride. For me, that has manifested in political aspirations and a love of all things American: American history, American literature, American art, etc.

I realize that this is not the life that most American teenagers lead. Memorial Day is not Memorial Day anymore. Memorial Day was established after the Civil War, where every American was impacted by the conflict. This war is debated over heavily in society today and as we view it critically, we should also recognize how much death and destruction ravaged the entire country. Memorial Day was established because it was needed; there were so many deaths, we had to create a holiday of remembrance. As we spend the last Monday of May gathering to honor fallen soldiers in generations past and present, we should remember the sorrow and tragedy that created this holiday in the first place.

Some more patriotic, pro-military individuals may criticize those who only see Memorial Day as an excuse for a party, a department store sale, or a day off work. They would be justified in doing so, as this holiday should be celebrated to recognize the great sacrifice men and women have given to this country. However, the fact that modern society can turn Memorial Day into something other than its intended purpose should comfort us: there is less death to memorialize.

In the late nineteenth century, every family had someone to mourn. National cemeteries had to be founded simply to create room for the bodies of the slain. People debate today about who won and lost the Civil War. From my perspective, no one won. Each side saw almost as many American deaths as World War II claimed. Every family lost. America lost. There are no winners when every hill and valley run with the blood of those who died. The Civil War Era is a dark period in American history, and for good reason, but we cannot ignore the tragedy and mourning that every individual experienced at this time.

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia and since stepping outside its borders, I have come to understand that my relationship with the Civil War is different than most Americans. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. In some ways, Richmond still is the capital of the Confederacy, not because pro-slavery movements still exist but because the city is still healing. If I could sum the Civil War up in one word, I would choose the world ‘destruction’. Even though Richmond is an old city and is one of the earliest colonial settlements, you would not know it by looking around. This is because the city was set ablaze in the final days of the Civil War. The old, historic buildings that exude New England charm are a privilege that Richmond is not allowed. The scorch marks are still burned into the earth, even though you cannot see them. The spirit of Virginia is not one of Union or Confederate but one of complete and utter loss. Hollywood Cemetery is a landmark of Richmond which holds the final resting place of many leaders, presidents, and fallen soldiers. On the hillsides, you will find headstones that do not read ‘army’ or ‘navy’ like most military cemeteries have. Some headstones say C.S.A: Confederate States of America. Their blood bleeds red too.

Growing up in this backdrop, I have always understood and appreciated the destructive power of war. This notion may be foreign to people who did not grow up in towns healing from war, even more than a century later. In a modern world where war feels very distant and impersonal, it can be easy to forget the magnitude of such diplomacy. Memorial Day should be a time to reflect on this.

The desolation witnessed in the Civil War continued into the twentieth century with both World Wars claiming the lives of sons and daughters. However, there is less death in the world. This may surprise us, as the media seems to be proliferated with images of violence and unrest all over the world, yet this is false. The world is seeing less violence. This is a trend that scholars have recorded globally where the amount of war, armed conflict, and combatant deaths have decreased. We tend to think of the World Wars being the most devastating wars ever fought and their tragic nature should not be ignored. However, the Civil War claimed more American lives than both World Wars combined. Setting aside the politicized nature of the conflict, can we reflect on how tragic that statement is? The greatest number of combatant deaths did not occur as a push for democracy, equality, and human rights in a distant country of dictatorship. It happened in our own backyard.

So, while we may spend the end of May perturbed by the lack of respect being shown by individuals who spend their holiday shopping instead of paying tribute and remembrance to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, we should supplement that with appreciation. We have grown from a time where everyone knew someone who had died in combat to a generation where most people are simply distantly related to a veteran. The call to duty of the present-day armed forces is something we should be greatly thankful for and our Memorial Day celebrations should be reminiscent of this spirit. But we should also find solace in the shift in the tone of Memorial Day itself. Being a soldier in modern America is not the certain death that it once was. The sacrifice being asked of soldiers is not what it has always been. One can serve their country and picture a life after their service has ended. Memorial Day is not Memorial Day anymore. Thanks be to God.

Read other articles by Emmy Jansen

Poppies to remember

Harry Scherer
Class of 2022

"If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields."

These three lines complete the 1915 John McCrae poem entitled "In Flanders Fields." This poem is one which valorizes courage, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. Lieutenant McCrae wrote it as a remembrance of the British soldiers who died in World War I. At the very least, the conclusion of the poem demands remembrance and reverence; for the particularly zealous, it requires action.

For an education professor at the University of Georgia, this call to action was unavoidable. Moina Belle Michael, now affectionately known as "The Poppy Lady," felt called to honor her fallen brothers and instituted a nationwide campaign to popularize the use of poppies as a symbol of gratitude for those who died in battle. The campaign was one of both mental and material benefit; in addition to remembering those who died in battle, the sale of the poppies brought financial relief to soldiers and their families. Michael’s goal was one intent on strengthening a certain social memory and practically providing for those who can be so easily forgotten.

A more often forgotten aspect of her movement was a poem that she wrote as a complementary response to McCrae’s. In 1918, she said in her poem "We Shall Keep the Faith", "We cherish, too, the poppy red / That grows on fields / where valor led; / It seems to signal to the skies / That blood of heroes never dies." These lines answer the inevitable question of "why poppies?" We could safely point to a suggestion of convenience; McCrae, and Michael after him, focused on the poppy because that is the flower that grows on the field where fallen soldiers lay. On a deeper, figurative level, Michael points out that the crimson red of the poppy flower signifies the blood pouring from the lifeless bodies formed by courageous souls. The flower in itself, though, is strangely one of hope. The vibrant color reflects off of the sun and the thin petals gracefully fold into one another.

Both McCrae and Michael recognized that soldiers saw these peaceful flowers sitting and growing silently as the world around them fought in frenzied anxiety. The poppies signify the refreshing, but at times dreadful, contrast between theory and practice, ideal and iniquity. It is certainly a fitting poetical tool to identify the poppy, a beautiful manifestation of the natural world, as a manifestation of what could be as opposed to the unnatural brutalities of war.

Furthermore, the poppy physicalizes the memory of those who have fallen before us in a way that some other plain object cannot. The flower serves as a catalyst to memory, which in itself is a debt of gratitude to those who have died for our sake. Memory, as a faculty of the intellect, aids us in bringing to life something that has passed. By remembering someone or something, we are identifying that person or thing as existing; if it does not exist, we could not remember it. For example, when we recall our first car, even if the vehicle was demolished into a sheet of metal decades ago, the form of the car still exists, at least insofar as it exists in our memory. While the physical matter of the car no longer exists in time, the form of the car exists.

The same is the case, in a much more profound and human sense, with those who have fallen in battle. While the matter of their bodies is lifeless and no longer inhabits their soul, the form of the person, the person still exists spiritually. To deny this would be to accept annihilation as the fate of human persons at death, which on its own is certainly a depressing theory. The poppy is a recognition of all of this as true; while anxiety hung over the hearts of men as they fought in battle and cared so much about returning home to their families, the poppy swung back and forth in the wind without care to human ignorance and shortsightedness.

The poppy also surely serves a social tool that encourages discussion among family members and friends about the memory of their loved one lost in battle. The social dimension of memory seems to be incredibly important because it is this social engagement with memories of the past that allows for a crystallization and clarification of their content. It is certainly a natural human desire to share grief, slowly and socially. The verbalization of memories allows for the one sharing to develop the memory from a mental reality to a verbal one and the one hearing it from a possible one to an audible and certain one. Sharing memories is an act of trust and something that should be encouraged by any community interested in exposing and mutually understanding the weaknesses of its members for the sake of personal and corporate strength. The notion of strength through weakness seems to be an overly used but poorly understood metric of development; if a building is weak, the inhabitants want to know everything that is weak about it so that the weaknesses can be recognized, addressed and reformed. The same is the case with persons and communities, especially bodies that are enduring a period of trauma in common. That which causes weakness, especially the physical and mental weakness that can come from the loss of a loved one from war, deserves to be shared with those in the griever’s community; a refusal to do so, especially for a long period of time, could understandably come from a refusal to recognize reality as it is.

While death and grief are sorely parts of life itself, the poppy sways in the air, drawing searching souls closer to an embrace of loss as something dreadful but necessary. The poppy is a figure of solidarity, the same image gazed upon by the brave in battle and those who promise to keep the faith.

Read other articles by Harry Scherer

Memorial Day is…

Angela Guiao
Class of 2021

Growing up, there was this story my mom loved to tell me. And yes, I’ve heard it multiple times. When I was younger, I had to attend CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) classes at a local church so that I could participate in my First Communion ceremony. The church so happened to be called the church of St. Jude, and since we lived nearby, it was the church my mom usually attended. My mom is a very religious person. Whenever she had a problem or couldn’t make a decision, she would go to church and pray. She strongly believed in asking the saints for help. I distinctly remember having lost my mermaid Barbie when I was a kid, and her telling me to pray to St. Anthony in order to find it. St. Anthony is the Patron Saint of Lost Things.

She often made remarks like this. She’d tell me to pray to God or one of the saints whenever I felt worried or sad. Praying brought her immense comfort. But there is one thing that she said she was scared of praying for again. And that is where her story begins.

Now this may be too much information, but my mom got married very late in her life. She spent most of her twenties and thirties single. Now, she wasn’t much of a partier, or a drinker, or a smoker, or an extrovert at all really, for that matter. She was a prayer.

One day, on the way to church, we passed this graveyard in the middle of Arlington, Virginia. This particular graveyard always caught my eye when I was younger, because at first glance, it looked like an army of identical, white marble headstones. It was quite jarring, the sight of hundreds of gravestones lined up one after another. It was unlike any other graveyard I’d ever seen.

One time, I asked my mom why there were so many headstones. And why they all looked the same. This graveyard wasn’t particularly scary. It was dignified in a solemn way. Anyways, he said that it was because soldiers were buried there.

She told me how when she first came to America, she also was fascinated by the graveyard. She was born in the 60’s, during the Vietnam war, but had only heard about the things that were going on. She also wasn’t very exposed in the Philippines to anything war related and had rarely ever seen any soldiers in her small town. When she came to America and saw the sheer number of soldiers who have died, she did the one thing that made her feel better. She prayed. She prayed specifically to St. Jude, the patron saint of Lost Souls.

Her story goes that she would pray for the lost souls of the soldiers who were buried but not identified. After learning about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a memorial built for all the unidentified soldiers who had died during the Civil War, she believed that she should pray for those souls to find their peace. As a result, she began to have these terrifying dreams. She said that random men who she had never seen before would appear in her dreams asking her for directions. Some of the men were missing their arms, others their legs. But they all appeared to be lost. After dreaming about a man who was missing his head, she decided that instead she would light a candle for all the lost souls each Memorial Day.

Now, that memory has been buried far in the back of my brain for a while now. This is because I do not have a deep connection to the military. I was not raised in a military family, and I don’t know very many people who have joined the military.

For me, Memorial Day meant summer. It meant pools opening, and discounts at my favorite stores. It meant a long weekend, usually with barbeque, and probably a trip to the beach. If I am being very honest with you, I wasn’t even sure what exactly Memorial Day was a celebration for until I searched it up a few minutes before writing this very article.

Writing this article has made me painfully aware. I’ve realized how easy it is to forget. I wonder how many people pray for the lost souls of the war or how many unidentified soldiers there are. I wonder how many people, like me, don’t know what Memorial Day is a celebration of, but continue to celebrate it anyway.

Now, in no way am I saying people should stop celebrating and stop being joyous and patriotic and proud. I believe we should do all those things because that it what our soldiers fought for: our freedom, our happiness, our opportunities to live our life the way we choose.

What I am saying is that perhaps we can do a little better. Perhaps we can find more ways to remember the fallen soldiers. Perhaps we can educate a little bit more, whether it be through our word of mouth, or through a small article like this.

Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday of May each year. It was once called Decoration Day because it was celebrated by decorating the graves of the soldiers who had died. While originally, Memorial Day was dedicated to honoring those who had died during the Civil War, it eventually evolved and became the day that all soldiers who had died in all wars were remembered and revered.

For me, I think I want to carry on the tradition my mother started. While I look back and find her story somewhat silly, it does make me wonder how many soldiers have died without anyone left to remember who they were. Memorial Day is so much more than just a day to celebrate with your family, it is also a day for understanding loss. It is a day of respect, of dignity, and of honor. And because of this, from now on, every Memorial Day, I will light a candle and pray to St. Jude.

Read other articles by Angela Guiao

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