I feel an odd ambivalence towards Memorial Day mattress, shoe, and furniture sales. These sales in no way commemorate the sacrifices men and women made serving their country. There must be a better way to honor our fallen troops. Can you think of a better way to say “thank you” for someone risking – and giving – life and limb? Buying charcoal and flip-flops doesn’t seem to cut it. Maybe buying a bouquet and laying flowers on veterans’ graves at the local cemetery and saying “I don’t know you, but I honor you and thank you for what you did” would be a respectful gesture. Maybe donate some cash to VA hospitals? Our government (read: we) should do more for these folks, swear to God.
I understand celebrating life and kicking back and all of us being “business as usual” is a thank you in a way because it means somewhere, at some time, these people did their job so we can relax on our asses and enjoy the simple freedoms that living in the United States brings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve got a ways to go, we’ve got things to iron out, sure. I mean, come on, we are still babies, comparatively speaking, but, really, it IS really fucking good here, okay? When the planes struck the towers, the ground, the Pentagon, that week a friend of mine and I, in our immeasurable shock and sorrow, made a pact to live on in spite of what happened. We drank in excess, yelled, smoked, spoke against our government; I drove around with my rock music loud, he tooled around in his impractical sports car with much more fervor than usual; we pissed away money on frivolous things; I walked around with short sleeves, my head bare; he ate a lot and spoke his mind everywhere and anywhere. We did it to thumb our noses at some misguided bastards who thought their particular heinous acts would frighten us and make us change our way of life. It didn’t; it made us revel in our freedoms even more, made us celebrate our piggish American “free world” ways even more (and both of us being first-generation Americans made it all the better, all the sweeter). We wanted to celebrate life for those who lost theirs during that terrible, terrible time. Our American hearts were still beating, and those with a different view of us would just have to go fuck themselves if they thought that ignorant act was going to bring us to our knees. We celebrated as an act of defiance, a dance of mourning, an exuberant, life-affirming act of retaliation.
Perhaps I can look at the mattress sales, the bra sales, the 40%-off sales at the corner hardware store the same way, but… it just doesn’t feel the same.
Something more meaningful needs to be done. Perhaps grilling some brats is the only gratitude these folks need, but… is it enough? It doesn’t cover my gratitude. I try to put myself in the fallen soldier’s shoes – fallen soldiers of not only the wars in my lifetime, but the world wars, the “that wasn’t really classified as a war” wars, and the Civil War; I try to think that folks playing in a pool or buying a new coffee table they got at a Memorial Day sale would please me, but… it just doesn’t.
In our reveling and celebrating the coming this holiday that rings in the summer months, I hope this weekend we take a good, long moment or two to pause and reflect on the freedoms we do have, the way of life we do enjoy, the relative peace we have between the northern and southern states, the peace we hold with Europe, Japan, Viet Nam, a little bit of Korea… Right or wrong, these people answered a distress call and fought a fight they believed in – and maybe didn’t believe in but they had no choice, and, for the most part, the U.S. military’s call to action is on our behalf, the regular citizens of this country. A lot of them were kids who didn’t want to be there, wherever “there” was. If I was in the service, you can bet your ass I’d be one of those who absolutely did NOT want to be there under any circumstance, away from my loved ones, away from home, lying in filth, starving, freezing, boiling, having boot rot or sand in my eyes or being lost and scared out of my mind in a jungle on the other side of the world, my leg blown off, aiming my gun at a stranger, walking on a stretch of land that may or may not have a land mine buried beneath it…
I know someone always goes in my place. Someone went in place of everyone in my family, because we’ve got no servicemen or women in my family except my dad, and HE didn’t want to be in WWII either, fighting alongside the bastard Mussolini, so he left what he considered an unjust war, walked away from it, walked home and helped his starving mother and sister. He wanted to be on the side of the Americans, anyway. THAT, he said, was a just cause. He remembered how he felt about that war and his place in it when he eventually became an American citizen. Can you imagine a war influencing you to pledge your allegiance to a brand-new country? Those were different times, my friends.
Anyway, I’m going out on a limb here and betting my life that not one single military person fought and served in any war or military action thinking it would benefit us by way of a great sale on patio furniture and umbrellas at Kohl’s or Walgreens. Maybe sales ARE an American way to celebrate, but Jesus Christ, it’s pale and petty and lousy.
Maybe I’ll buy a flag to commemorate. That may be thanks enough. I will see if they’re having a Memorial Day sale on flags over at Walgreens.