While you are taking time off today for Memorial Day in the US, try to remember why we remember.

I’ve written a few times of my disdain for spam, junk e-mail. There just seems something more intrusive, and more distasteful about it, than other kinds of unwanted solicitation. Recently, I started getting emails from something called “Patriotic Points.” It’s a poorly written, poorly disguised bit of campaign dreck spouting the lies we’ve all been on added with since November 2020. Normally I just click on the ”this is spam, keep it away from me” button and let the email client do its work, but this time I (foolishly) clicked “unsubscribe.” Within the week I was bombarded with a variety of ‘newsletters’ all with different names and subjects, but from the same email address each calling themselves American, Patriotic, Truth-seekers, but none of them living up to their self-acclaimed appellations.

I find something particularly sad about his year’s Memorial Day. So many people are calling themselves or others “patriots” who have never lived the word. It seems we’ve been too concerned Artificial Intelligence misleading us, we forget politicians invented the AI process. For 10 years I woke in a Memorial Day and dressed in uniform, not for a parade or a cemetery honor guard, but to report for duty. None of those years were spent in combat zones, but each day for all of them started not knowing that. Steadily, we performed our duties in training knowing that one day we could report for duty and be loaded into a transport plane for a point to be announced en route. We were not heroes, but we were and are patriots, as in the real definition of patriot.

So today when you see the parade pass by or see a flag wave, remember why we remember. “Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” (Adlai Stevenson)

Happy Memorial Day

As we move through life, our needs change and so do the energy and interest we pay to activities and events.  As one interest wanes, another rises to keep the mind and body moving at the same energy level. It all works out.