Opinion: Memorial Day isn’t about high gas prices or the start of BBQ season

[Geee]

Deseret

Some are saying that Memorial Day this year will be a welcome downtime for Americans weary of struggles with a pandemic, inflation, high crime and shortages of things like baby formula.

True, these are valid concerns that will demand the best thinking of politicians and policy makers, but they pale in comparison to what the nation’s problems would be if brave men and women had not willingly sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom.

 

James Garfield, who would ultimately lay down his life to an assassin’s bullet while serving as president, spoke at the first Decoration Day ceremony at Arlington Cemetery on May 30, 1868, a forerunner of the modern Memorial Day holiday. While then serving as a member of Congress, he set the proper tone for future Memorial Day services:

 

“I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion,” he said. “If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of 15,000 men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung. … 

“We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue.”

Garfield’s words were made more poignant by the fact he had served as a major general in the Union Army that had preserved the United States.

 

The sad truth is that each generation has had to offer its share of brave soldiers to the same cause. Freedom is truly never won forever.

Memorial Day should be a time to think of these heroes — people like Maj. Brent Taylor, who took a leave of absence as mayor of North Ogden to serve with the Utah National Guard in Afghanistan. He was on a weekly training hike in 2018 with Afghani special operations soldiers in training when one of them shot and killed him. An investigation later found that the Afghani soldier had been radicalized.

[Valin]

@Have A Discussion this morning

12 things to do this Memorial Day weekend in Minnesota

Alpha News Staff

May 28, 2022

Quote

LeapingLen • 20 hours ago

Invite family over. Discuss MNExit strategy. Homes there are selling fast and for good reason. Come on down South where you can fly your Trump flags and live safely and more cheaply. You'll be APPRECIATED he

Quote

Steven Wiederholt LeapingLen • 3 hours ago

"Invite family over. Discuss MNExit strategy."

 

How about One Day where we DON'T talk politics?

Quote

LeapingLen Steven Wiederholt • 3 hours ago

How about discussing SURVIVAL then? Or just invite a fiddler to play while another crooked election cycle passes by?

Quote

Steven Wiederholt LeapingLen • 2 hours ago

There is More to Life than politics. Politics 34/7 is just well BORING! And I'm a Political/News Junkie.

Quote

LeapingLen Steven Wiederholt • an hour ago

I will forward your message to the many small-business owners who were forced to end their life's dreams due to hand-picked lockdowns and riots. There is nothing to see here.

 

Some People Just Don't Get It.  Politics is the Be All & End All? I Don't Think So.