A few thoughts on Memorial Day...

Tomb of the Unknowns. Wikimedia commons. 

Today is Memorial Day in America. It's a day that is supposed to be about honoring the men and women who died in combat while serving their country. More often then not it is treated as a three day weekend, or in my case, a day that I get double time and a half for working on a holiday. But the actual purpose of the holiday is to honor the dead. This is not the day to thank the veterans that survived. That is what Veterans Day is for and some vets won't appreciate it if you don't know the difference. 

So how should we honor our fallen soldiers? That is a good question. Wreaths and flowers are nice gestures, but they don't really make up for a life lost too soon. Taking care of the family and loved ones of the fallen helps in an actual way. And taking care of the many veterans that did make it home also honors their service. After all, they weren't just fighting for their country, they were fighting for their comrades in arms. 

I think that trying to make sure that their sacrifice was not in vain would go a long way to helping as well. I'm sure there are a lot of veterans out there today that are wondering if the 2nd Gulf War was worth it. I'm wondering it myself. We sacrificed many lives in Iraq and we saw it descend into the very chaos we were supposed to saved it from. Having ISIS take over Ramadi was an especially bitter pill to swallow. We lost around 100 soldiers and Marines in that battle only to see it fall. And it's not like the rest of the country is doing all that well either. And the same goes for Afghanistan.

I'm not sure what else to say. I don't personally know anyone who died in the various American wars. I know a lot of vets that do though. My family has been lucky. I have a lot of vets on both sides of my family and a few that saw combat, including my Uncle and my late Grandfather. They all made it through. My uncle survived the utter hell that was the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and my Grandfather dodged kamikazes as an army engineer during World War II. I even had a relative that served in the Civil War, but he survived as well, even though he ended up getting hurt in a non-combat injury.  

At one point I wanted to serve myself, but I wasn't able to make it into the military due to various medical problems. If I had I guess I could have been one of the soldiers that died in Afghanistan or Iraq. My MOS would have been 11B, AKA front line infantry, so there was at least a decent chance that had I served I wouldn't have made it home. For me, Memorial Day reminds me that someone else may have had to die because I couldn't serve my country. Those of us that did not serve should, at the very least, honor those that died.