Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 28, 1990 TAG: 9005290213
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Today we honor those valiant heroes who went before us. The blood they spilled to earth has dried and vanished. But the principles and freedoms for which they paid the ultimate sacrifice shall endure."
Familiar - and dishonest.
First, and sadly, most Americans are giving little if any thought today to those who died in the service of the nation. It's summer's unofficial start; for most Americans, it's a day to recreate, not commemorate.
It's not even Memorial Day, really. That's Wednesday. By jiggling with the calendar, voila, we observe it today - and most people enjoy a three-day weekend. Few pretend that recreation isn't the priority.
Moreover, those who've spilled their blood in defense of the nation weren't necessarily valiant heroes. Most were ordinary people caught up in tragically extraordinary times and called on to do tragically extraordinary things.
Many of them draftees, others of them reluctant volunteers, they were snared by the jaws of war. Most sought survival, not glory, yet a sense of duty overcame the natural inclination to stay out of the line of fire. They served their country.
Finally, there's no guarantee that the principles and freedoms for which they died shall endure. There's no guarantee that external threats to American freedoms will not again arise. There's no guarantee that internal threats to freedom, no less dangerous for their greater subtlety, will be resisted forevermore.
Memorial Day, in short, is no time to make more of our forebears than they were, or more of their accomplishments than they were.
To make more of our forebears than they were is to diminish them. They were not comic-book heroes, but real men and women. Their humanity makes them more memorable; it makes their sacrifice greater, more poignant.
To make more of their accomplishments than what they were is to diminish those, too. Their lives bought nothing so grand as the securing of freedom forever. It was more mundane, if nonetheless valuable, merchandise that they helped purchase: the chance that America might survive for a while, and thus have a chance, for a while, to try living up to its ideals, to make manifest its destiny.
As the sacrifices of those who died in America's service recede further into history, and as democracy seems in the ascendant - however fitfully - across the globe, we can take heart. Perhaps this period of peace will last longer than most; perhaps notions of human rights and individual liberty can take root in places where they seldom have flowered.
But let us not delude ourselves.
Let us not deify those who gave their lives as if they were immortals for whom the sacrifice was nothing.
Let us not blithely assume that the freedoms for which they died will never again be challenged.
Let us not, in our barbecues and picnics and trips to the beach, forget them.
by CNB