Tag Rememberance

Forgetting to remember

Michael 11 Comments

An article penned by Pittsburgh Post Gazette Ariana Ramirez sparked a thought in my old, tired brain. Her premise was that cries of “never forget” fall on deaf ears of those who are not intimately familiar with the whatever that is not to be forgotten. Her examples were the September 11 attacks and the JFK assassination.

There seem to be precious few of us who remember the events of 1963 and that may well explain why fewer tears are shed each November. The terrorist attacks of a mere 24 years ago though. That’s recent events, right? Ms. Ramirez reminded me that those on college campuses today were still years from being born. “How can someone remember something they never experienced in the first place?” She asked before clarifying, “Ninety to 95 million Americans were born since 1998. How can they understand what it means to the people who do remember?”

I’ll go a step further than that. In a world where the world’s most popular short form social network’s most popular post length is less than 30 seconds and “educational” content sometimes reach 60 seconds, the chance of remembering anything are roughly the same odds of college freshman remembering 9/11.

The same people who after last week’s shooting of a conservative activist were posting “We must never let this happen again,” had already forgotten about the two children killed and 21 others injured 15 days earlier. Or any of the 11 other Americans killed by gun fire during 16 mass shootings that took place between those two events.

The rhetoric on both sides is becoming embarrassing. That is a significant difference from a year ago when the rhetoric on just one side was embarrassing. The right continues to push that the problem is not guns but the people who use the guns unless it is a right-wing shooter then it’s the fault of the system and we need better active shooter training. By the way, here are our thoughts and prayers. When the left had been pushing for reasonable gun control laws, they seem to have now abandoned that hopeless (until the NRA is disbanded) case, and now have turned to remind the Republican caucus of their failures to address any meaningful gun issues and to remind the American public of the failures of the current administration. Both superfluous.

We must never forget:

     There are responsibilities that go with each right

     Guns don’t kill people, the bullets launched from them do

     People launch bullets from guns

     Thoughts and prayers are a component of humanity, not a solution to violence

     Things that happened before the most recent 40 second post are still important

On September 11, 2025, I had the opportunity to act as master of ceremonies for a special event. Before I opened the event I asked for a moment of silence to remember those who gave their lives during the 9/11 attacks. Usually when a “moment of silence” is requested, people begin to stir on their feet or in their seats at about the 20 second mark. I am pleased(?) to report the audience that day was still bowed in prayer and remembrance long after the full minute I held my silence, raised my head, and looked over the crowd. Maybe we are getting better. Maybe we are remembering. Maybe we will never forget. Maybe some day we will act.

Memorial Day 2025

Michael 10 Comments

Today should be a day of celebration. It will be a day of picnics and parades where it is not raining, and one of gripes and grievances where it is. There will be sales on paints and home fixer uppers as well as watermelons and water guns as we welcome ‘the unofficial start of summer.” As close to noon as possible, at the end of a parade or in front of a town war memorial, someone will play taps, and as close to as soon as possible, the revelry can begin, and the memory portion of Memorial Day will conclude.

There are three holidays that celebrate members of the United States military. Armed Forces Day (the third Saturday of May) honors those wearing the uniform, Veterans Day (every year on November 11) honors those who have hung up their uniform, and Memorial Day remembers those who never made it out of their uniform. Over 1.1 million Americans perished in wars since the American Revolution. Many of those we celebrate on Armed Forces Day and Veterans Day believe those 1.1 million are the only members of the armed forces truly worthy of celebration. The rest are “merely doing our job.”

For the most part, those we remember today chose to be Americans, either themselves or by birth. Few of them outside those who served other than those who served in the 18th Century can trace their ancestry back to those earliest Americans. Very few of them can trace their roots to the natives of this land. What is probably an understatement is that the U. S. military is made of members who hail (or hailed) from over 20 countries, bringing their language, customs, celebrations, and memories onto the fields of battle and training along with their boots and gear and weapons. When I was serving, there were in my company those who were born in America soldiers, birthright soldiers, immigrant soldiers, and one Native American soldier. The common denominator was soldier. To the best of my knowledge, all are either still in their uniforms or have taken them off by choice. None of us will be celebrated this weekend and that’s okay.

What isn’t okay is if the 1.1 million who never had the chance to decide if they wanted a life out of their uniforms to be forgotten, or worse, to be remembered in passing, or only as a means to sponsor a sale or take advantage of a photo opportunity.

The history of this nation and the future fate of this nation is rooted in those 1.1 million individuals. Enjoy the parades, the first day at the pool, the 2 for 1 watermelon. Before you do any of that, thank God for sending people with the courage to have defended your privilege to do those things, and pray we won’t soon need more of them.

Don’t Forget

Michael Leave a comment

Today, all across America people will wake up, raise their flags to half-staff, pray for and remember those who have sacrificed time, bodies, and lives from the earliest battles of the American Revolution for the very freedom that allows us to raise our flags, then return to them at noon and raise those flags fully as we look forward to continued freedom throughout our county.

That’s the ideal for Memorial Day.  The unfortunate reality is that this holiday as with all the others has become a reason for a day off from work, to complain about not getting a day off from work, another weeklong sale for every retailer from car dealerships to drug stores, and to raise gasoline prices.  Are we being cynical?  Maybe a little.  But…

You only have to have been watching television for the past two weeks.  At least a quarter of the ads have featured Memorial Day Sales.  Special deals, special financing, special purchases, special hours.  It’s all happening this day only but because the savings are so big they’re making this one day sale stretch over most of May and half of June.

Yet while all this was going on, where were the Memorial Day stories?  Finally on Friday the national news outlets squeezed in a feature to close the newscast spotlighting a returning serviceman or how flags are made.   The local news might have picked up two stories spotlighting a returning serviceman and a part of a highway dedicated to a World War II fighting unit.

Today will start with the local news repeating those couple of stories they’ve been playing all weekend long.  But then there will be parades and at the end someone will play Taps.  There will be an honor roll read, cemeteries will get visitors, churches will hold memorial services.  And some will have not forgotten and raise their flags to freedom.

You see, what society has forgotten, people will remember.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?