A Spatula City

Memorial

For May 28th, 2007 - Memorial Day

(Originally published May 29th, 2000)

What Is Memorial Day?
by LT Bobby Ross bobbyros@nashville.net

Reproduced with permission of the author

My years whirl past me. Swirling. Dry, broken grass
hovering in a spring breeze. Can I remember my experiences in war?
Hardly. Fighting for my country, my youth invested, seems such a long
time ago, and so unimportant. The calendar this year marks Memorial
Day on the 29th of May, 2000. Have I lost something? The traditional
Memorial Day, also known as Decoration Day, is on the 30th of May.
This observed Memorial Day on May 29th coincidentally allows for a
national three day holiday. Such is commercialism's capitalistic
American display. But why do I feel so stricken, like I have
abandoned old friends from long ago? Their ghosts consort with my
floating years, and their spirits coast around my presence.

Another three day holiday! Memorial Day! Maybe me and the
kids can go camping? Or, to the beach? Memorial Day is fun! This is the
inconsiderate, thoughtless approach to this meaningful, and consecrated
moment representing one three hundred and sixty-fifth of our year.
What is the meaning of Memorial Day? Is it merely a three day escape
from our worldly duties? Or, is it the official beginning of summer?
Is selling more hot dogs at the ballpark the overriding
clarification?

Many souls, sacrificed in war, in duty to America, are
wandering. They drift in a heavenly place, minus their future here
upon earth. Tomorrows were forfeited. Given up so our nation would
invigorate free souls, aspire them to freedom, and justly allow their
lives lived as they prefer. Raising offspring above restrictions, as
they desire. Those lost lives giving we, the living, what we want
freely. Those are the souls we respect on Memorial Day. This means it
is a sacred day.

Without retrospect, sacrifice is mute. Old Glory does not
wave by accident. It flutters in the spring air revealing honor. The
color red represents the blood bloom from those who fell, those who
clawed, those who cried in horrible pain. Those who died fast. And,
those who died ever so slowly. They did their duty. When I see Old
Glory waving on a sunny, end of May day, the pigment red gushes
from millions of souls, floating, not with us, anymore. They are
amongst our heroes, cajoling with angels with their champions,
conquerors and commanders. Friends and loved ones gather, over the
grave, witness to those who gave more than anyone should be required to
relinquish. They did not want to yield. They were in the wrong place
at the wrong time, and when the moment harshly struck them their fatal
blow, they cried for their mother, or their friend. Then there were
those, many of those, who knew exactly what they were giving. They
moved forward knowingly. They lost their lives so their mission
would be accomplished.

Fools! Some intellects can say that. One would have to be an
imbecile to give up life, no matter what the cause. For a flag?
Futile! For a country! More pointless! For freedom! What freedom is
there in mortality? Yes, fools they may have been, but their numbers add
up in an awesome display of American loss! Veterans' Cemeteries, white
badges sailing row after row after row upon green grass, almost
never ending, creeping onto the horizon. Constant reminders of the
devastation of our human treasure. Mothers' tears, enough to fill
an ocean to overflow. Sweethearts, broken hearted, reading
telegrams. Sons and daughters, many unborn, wakening at birth to
a devastated family suffering from a victim of war there no more. And
what does all this macabre math equal? Memorial Day is the correct
answer.

Few Americans know a person who died in war. Their family
trees have lost some leaves, falling as they fought in one of
America's wars, or discarded in the peacetime military. We are a
busy people. We have business to capture. Our kids are in school.
We have chores. Mundane, or surrealistic. We are a spirited society,
seeking applications to improve ourselves and our communities. We
are a helpful populace, always there when the going gets tough to help
those who have suffered the tragedies of nature, whether a hurricane
or a famine. Americans are always the first on the scene worldwide
bearing their gifts of human spirit and abundance. This is why it
is so puzzling that the meaning of Memorial Day seems to lack
substance to many of our own people. Even with the day itself. Put
back to accommodate a holiday schedule fixed by some organism no one
knows, yet powerful enough to do so, the day itself lacks consequence
to too many. Many who never knew a person who died in service to
America are wrought with the invisible pain of not feeling for those
who do.

Americans take things for granted. We have so much. So
very much. Endless choices. These options are not available
worldwide. Our shelves are full. Unlike many in other nations of the
world. So many are empty or offer very limited selections. Those
American fighting men and women killed in battle whose souls are
floating actually made available these wondrous choices we have every
day of our American lives. Yet, most of our youngsters have no idea
whatsoever what this means. They don't learn this in school. We
must teach them. For without knowledge, they may end up thinking,
or believing, all these marvelous selections came without
circumstance. Minus anything. Equaling no meaning.

Our nation needs to halt and perceive the flags and
flowers on our Veterans graves on this consecrated holiday. We need to
lift a common voice of adoration to those floating spirits of our
onetime American Warriors, and extol them with a salutation. We have
not come that far with our technological miracles of this millennium
to become crass. We still need respect. Our backs can not turn from
formality. Our eyes can not look away from custom. Our voices
must not resonate in silence against honor and glory. To do so will
leave us hollow, only to fill us with that which is desolate and
lacking potential. This is not the true meaning of Memorial Day.
The heartfelt significance requires reminding. Story telling. Wisdom
being passed on from our Veterans to our younger generations. An
interpretation certified by those who remember the horrors of war.
Without this core, our society can not remain genuine. It becomes
contemptible. It rots from within. These floating souls of our lost
American Warriors are a powerful force, for they

live within our hearts. They constantly seek justification for
their contributions, and they are real within us. Such is what our
American substance stands for, where character is developed,
individually is guaranteed, and a community, a nation, survives.

America enters the 21th Century as the most powerful entity
humankind has ever experienced. America permeates this next century
with vast responsibilities. Our children must bear this promise. We
can not turn our backs on these bygone descendants, nor can we do so
upon ourselves. Memorial Day offers us the opportunity to express a
moment of solitude where each of us can personify in our own way what
we feel. I only speak for my myself, as one who has bared his soul
to the dread of war. So my father did, and his father's father
before him, and their souls float amongst the multitudes. My mother
and her mother held their Veterans after they returned from war,
tears streaming down their cheeks in gratitude for their safe return.
And there were those in my ancestry who did not return from war. And
their mothers' tears soaked the pillows on beds for generations to sleep
upon. Their souls are the dreams that drift amongst the floating,
gathering at the end of May in the breeze of summer's coming, in the
cool glass of lemonade at the child's street side stand, in the
cheers at the ball game from the crowd rooting their team to victory
and enjoying the best hot dogs in the world. Let us all stop for
a moment, whether it is on the traditional day, or the observed
Memorial Day, or even at the end of May, and reach for those floating
souls. Let us reveal to them how much we cherish their sacrifice for
our free people. Let these memories harvest our recognition of the
meaning of Memorial Day in a very simple wordy. And let that word,
simply stated be: Thanks.

(copyrighted 2000)

(Permission to reproduce granted freely and unconditionally)

PEACE,
Bobby Ross

bobbyros@nashville.net
http://www.nashville.net/~bobbyros/webtv.html
medallion.webzine.cc
http://community-2.webtv.net/lanebrody/VETERANSDAYSPECIAL/

A-TRACKMUSIC.COM
11 Music Square East
Suite #501
Nashville, TN 37203

A Proud Supporter of FARM AID!
Office 615 244-8725
SPLASH 2000!

SALUTE TO AMERICAN VETERANS, THEIR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS ON
MEMORIAL DAY AND VETERANS DAY

SPLASH 2000!
AMERICAN VETERANS
OUR FREEDOM..OUR HISTORY..OUR FUTURE
AMERICA'S WAY OF LIFE!