Memorial Day Message 2023

Memorial Day is a different kind of holiday. More a day for honoring and remembering than pure celebration. In America, it's different in another way, it's different because we support the values our heroes died for, not just the sacrifice they made for their country. While virtually every country honors their war dead, only a few also honor the cause or causes they died for. In former communist and fascist countries, those who honor their dead likely reject the political causes they died for. In some, perhaps most cases, the honor is for protecting their homelands and answering the call of duty. In some cases, they were pressed into service to fight for a cause not their own, but they are honored nonetheless.

That's not to say that our values would be or should be in complete accord with each and every American fallen hero. The war against the Native American tribes comes to mind. Did they fall in protection of their loved ones, or in an effort subdue a people? Maybe both? Most importantly however, those men and women we honor were our family, friends, our countrymen. They were people who fought for a cause greater than themselves. They fought and died for a dream, an ideal we call “America”. It's an idea we might spend the rest of our days perfecting, but a worthy one. The challenge is to keep that idea, that all men are created equal under God, that values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, be the reason we fight, if we must fight. We honor our fallen by honoring those ideals, so that their sacrifices will never be in vain.