Today Should Not Be Memorial Day (and Please Stop With the Thanking Veterans Today)

Rant the First: Do not go up to a veteran today and thank him or her for serving because it's Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a lineal descendant of Decoration Day, which began as a day to honor those who had died serving in the Grand Army of the Republic, a/k/a the Union Army. Memorial Day is for honoring the dead. Veterans Day for honoring the living as well.

Thanking a veteran on Memorial Day could be construed as saying "you should only die soon."

So knock that shit off.

Rant the Second: Today should not be Memorial Day. It should be on May 30th.

Maybe I should just specify this yearly rant as a "continuing objection", or something.

But we, as a nation, moved Veterans' Day back to the anniversary of the World War I Armistice. This is supposed to be the day to honor those who have served and who had their lives ripped away from them.

It's not supposed to be a day to get a jump-start on the summer or the day to get twenty percent off on cheap-jack Chinese shit. That's just ignoble capitalistic debasement of a once-noble holiday.

Memorial Day

Yes, this is a American military cemetery in France, the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery.

No, it is not from the Second World War.

I have mixed feelings about Memorial Day as we now do it. When I was a child, Memorial Day was May 30th and that was that. Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, whatever day it fell upon, that was the day that this nation remembered its war dead.

It has been cheapened since then. Since 1971, Memorial Day has been debased from not a day to remember those who fell in battle, but as the unofficial start of the summer vacation season. It's become three days to get the garden started, to rest up from work, to go shopping, and oh, let's not be bothered to remember the men and women who died to win our freedoms and to keep them.

Memorial Day should be observed on May 30th, and for those who would wail about losing a three day weekend, I say: Suck it up.

Memorial Day

I've timed this post for nautical twilight, which was a customary time to attack a position. (That was about the time that the Redcoats wanted to arrive in Lexington, but they were late.)

Originally Decoration Day, Memorial Day was the day to clean up and put flowers and flags on the graves of Americans who fought for (and against) the country. It was a solemn day, marked by parades and services on town greens.

But a little over fifty years ago, the chuckleheads in Congress changed the date itself from May 30th to the last Monday of the month. That transformed Memorial Day from a solemn event into a day for cookouts and travelling, making it the unoffical start of the summer vacation season. That was done because the fucking unpatriotic greedheads in the tourism and retail industries sought to monetize it, as they do everything else.

They did the same to Veterans Day, but the veterans complained and Congress moved it back in 1978, But nobody seems to speak as loudly for the dead, so Memorial Day has been corrupted ever since.

Remember those whose lives were taken in service of this country.

The Doughboy was Joseph F. Ambrose, Sr. His son, Clement, was killed in action in the Korean War.

This Should Not Be Memorial Day

Which is a rant that I've gone on about a few times.

I don't know what asshole was responsible for the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968. I don't know what jerkwad first thought it would be a good idea to take holidays that commemorated certain things and turn them into three-day weekends. Oh, it was probably popular with the merchants and the travel industry. When Memorial Day or Washington's birthday was in the middle of the week, nobody traveled for it. A sale was a little harder to arrange, for it would be a one-day event and, back then, most reputable stores closed for Memorial Day, anyway.

Because Memorial Day was about honoring dead soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and the veterans who had passed on. It wasn't about going to the lake or buying cheap crap at a sale.

We might as well be honest and change the name of this holiday to "Hit the Road and Buy Shit Holiday #3".

Update: You should read this and this and these two articles.

A Day of Greed and Sloth is All That Today Really Is

Memorial Day was once a day to remember those Americans who died in service of this nation. It was not meant to be a shopping extravaganza, a kickoff for summer vacations and a day for parties and other such bullshit.

But you know that in a capitalist society (or half-capitalist, since the airlines, banks and such all get rescued with government money when they get into trouble), greed is a cardinal virtue and anything that facilitates getting consumers to go more deeply into debt is a sacrement.

So, as I've ranted before, to satisfy the greedy fuckers, Memorial Day was changed from a somber day of reflection to a floating holiday to make for a longer weekend.

Every holder of a "Memorial Day Sale" should be regarded as a bottom-feeder who is enriching themselves from the memories of those who did the hard work of fighting and dying.

So, on this fake holiday, I say to you:

Spend Nothing!

This Isn't Memorial Day

A continuing objection. I've been on this since the first Memorial Day after I began blogging.

We honor all veterans on what was originally Armistice Day, November 11th and, if that day falls in the middle of the week, so it goes. It bugs me that we cannot accord the same degree of respect to our dead, but no, it's now just another excuse for a three-day weekend and for greedy-as-fuck retailers to lure the dweebs into their stores.

So, to all of those congressmen and senators who voted for the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, and to LBJ, who signed the bill into law, damn you all. And to those retailers running "Memorial Day Sales", go fuck yourselves and your horses.

(By the way, there is no such federal holiday as "President's Day". It is still, officially, Washington's Birthday. Look it up.)

Armistice Day

Eleven AM on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year nineteen eighteen, when the guns fell silent along the Western Front. The Great War, the World War, the War to End All Wars. 24 million American men were registered for the draft during the four registration dates of June 15, 1917 (men 21-31), June 5, 1918, (men who turned 21 after 6/15/17), August 24, 1918 (those who turned 21 6/5/18)and September 12, 1918 (age 18 through 45). 24 million men out of an overall population of 103 million.

In April of 1917, when the US declared war on Germany, the Army had 127,000 soldiers, the National Guard had another 80,000. In November of 1918, two million soldiers were part of the American Expeditionary Force. By the end of the war, 2.8 million men had been drafted, which was then half of the Army. If the war had gone on, close to five million men would have been sent to France by the summer of 1919.

Armistice Day was proclaimed by President Wilson in 1919. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 to ask that all presidents proclaim November 11th as Armistice Day, a day to thank those who served and to work for peaceful relations between nations. Armistice Day became a legal Federal holiday in 1938. The name was changed to Veterans Day in 1954. In 1971, Veterans Day was moved to the fourth Monday in October along with three other holidays that were moved to Mondays (Washington's Birthday [now Presidents Day], Memorial Day and Columbus Day). Veterans Day was moved back to November 11th in 1978.

Veterans Day is not a day for economic activity. Those merchants who boldly proclaim "Veterans Day Sales" are profaning this Day. Whether you are off work today or are working, take a moment of time, not to thank those who serve, but to reflect on the sacrifice this country has asked and, at times, demanded of its young men and women.

Think of the human costs incurred when we send people to war. Think of what it costs this country. We should not so lightly and glibly send our young men and women into war, as we have done at least twice in the last fifty years.

It is indeed proper that we honor our veterans. We should try to make certain that we only make new war veterans when it is absolutely necessary.

Memorial Day

Last year's post.

I'm timing this post for an hour before sunrise in my town. An hour before sunup was an unofficial time to attack an enemy encampment or town, in the hopes of catching your enemies still abed.

Andy Rooney had the right of it: They didn't "give their lives". Few soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen "give" up their lives. Their lives are taken from them, whether by force of arms or, as was more common up until several decades ago, by disease and pestilence.

Memorial Day, or, as it was once known, Decoration Day, was a solemn day to remember those who fought and died for my country. It was not meant to be the unofficial start of the Summer Vacation and Grilling Season.

Every congressman and senator who voted to make it a 3-day weekend, and every congressman and senator since then who has not tried their utmost to restore Memorial Day to May 30th, should be damned.

Memorial Day

This is what I wrote last year.

It bothers me that Memorial Day has been devalued into just another damn floating holiday so that people can have a three day weekend. It has for decades. Whoever thought up the phrase "Memorial Day Sale" blasted and blackened their soul when they did so.

About 25,000 men died in the Revolutionary Army to free this nation. Over a million have died in wars since and tens of millions of men and women have served in our armed forces. It is they who should be honored tomorrow. They should be honored with a proper day of remembrance and reflection, not with a cruddy three-day weekend.

But I'm spitting into the wind on this.

Today Should Not Be Memorial Day

Yesterday should have been Memorial Day.

The soldiers and Marines in this cemetery have been there for nearly a century (the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery). When their lives were taken from them, the day was called Decoration Day and it took place on May 30th. Most of them were likely draftees who, given their druthers, would have stayed home and raised families. Their great-grandchildren would be adults, now. But they did what was asked of them and more. And they never came home. Those who remembered them, who were devastated when the telegram arrived bringing news of their deaths, are themselves now dead. If their letters home were not preserved, the only tangible memory of their existence is now those markers over their graves in France.



We should not use the day to honor those men and women as an excuse to kick off the summer holiday season. It should be more than the day to mark when it is proper for women to wear white shoes.

I know, I piss into the wind about this every year.[1] It still gripes me. We've changed it from a day to honor those who gave the last full measure of devotion and made it into the unofficial start of the summer vacation season.

The Canadians had the good sense to do that to a day that remembers a long-dead monarch who is now best known for the phrase "we are not amused." We should have done the same.

[1]And I am going to continue to gripe about this ever year. Deal with it.

Memorial Day

I realize that today isn't the legal Memorial Day, but it once was (and it should be again). And so, with no further ado:

This is the commemorative stone and the grave of Jacob Russell, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He served in the Connecticut Militia in 1775 and later moved to what was then Warrensville Township and is now Shaker Heights, Ohio:

When the original South Park Cemetery was relocated in 1909, Mr. Russell's grave was left undisturbed. If you were to go for a walk around the Shaker Lakes, you'll find his grave to the west of the south side of Horseshoe Lake.

What Mr. Russell did during the war has been lost to history. He served for five months. His rank is not known. Whether he was wounded or injured and invalided out or served his enlistment or just walked away is lost to time. There is even dispute as to whether he was born in Windsor, CT or Kingston, NY. There is dispute as to when he moved to Ohio.

But he served his country before it was officially a country.

This day exists to remember Jacob Russell and all others who have served in this country's armed forces and whom are no longer with us. It was originally called Decoration Day, a day to put flags and other tokens of remembrance on the graves of veterans. In short, this isn't the day to go around thanking living veterans for their service. You can do that on any other day.

This day is to remember those who have passed.

This Isn't Memorial Day

A continuing objection.

Making Memorial Day into a three day weekend is akin to those pissant towns that declare that they're only running speed traps to enforce the law: You know they're lying about it. The only reason that they run speed traps is to collect revenue. If they weren't allowed to keep the money, they'd not run the speed traps (or disincorporate as a town).

The three-day-weekend Memorial Day is all about money. It's all about encouraging people to spend their money. It has fuck-all to do with honoring those deceased men and women who served their country.

Memorial Day

By my reckoning, this is the third time since I began this blog that the Memorial Day holiday has fallen on the day it was originally intended to occur, before it was co-opted by the greedy fucks in the retail and tourism industries. So my usual rant is on hold until next year, Lord willing.

We ought to dispense with the phrase "they gave their lives". Few willingly set forth to die in combat. The intention, then and now, has been to serve one's country and, at least for now, to defend freedom.

Unfortunately, war goes on. National leaders continue to believe that they can achieve policy goals by conquering other nations and subjugating them.[1] There are those who believe that the answer to aggression is not fighting back. I am not aware of a single time when an invasion of one country by another was defeated by pacific resistance.

As long as politicians think that war is the answer to a diplomatic problem, then we will continue to send young people into combat, continue to add graves to military cemeteries and continue to have more honored dead to remember on Memorial Day.
_______________________________

[1] George W. Bush and Vladimir V. Putin come quickly to mind.

Armistice Day

After all, that was the original name for it. Armistice Day, for the day that the guns fell silent along the Western Front in Europe, the last day of what was then called the Great War. 11AM on the 11th day of the 11th month, 89 years ago. Within a handful of years, there will be no veterans of that war among us, they will have all gone down the trail of those who fought in the Spanish-American War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Civil War, the Crimean War and all the wars that preceded them.

Then Armistice Day became Veterans' Day, which has now followed Memorial Day (formerly Decoration Day) to become observed by the various governments on a Monday, so all of the government workers and banks and school kids can have a three-day weekend and have an excuse to go to the mall and prop up our consumption-based economy.

But that is not what I want to discuss.

I am sure that it would take only a few seconds to find blog entries about Veterans Day that would discuss the sacrifices made by our veterans, blog entries that would go on to talk about the Iraq War and how we should support our soldiers and how that means we should support Bush's handling of the wars. They may even throw a bone about how the right to dissent is a cornerstone of a free society, but then they will imply (or state outright) that dissenting against the Iraq War is tantamount to disloyalty or treason.

But they will not discuss the one point that most of those writers have in common: They did not serve. They cannot go to their safe-deposit box and pull out an original copy of a DD-214, if they even know what a DD-214 is. No, the Fighting Keyboardists of the 101st Chickenhawks are all about honoring the veterans and prosecuting Chimpy's wars, as long as neither they nor their fellow keyboardists and their kin have to do anything other than run the risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from all of their praise of George Bush and the rest of his cabal.

I am sick of it. I am sick of them. I hold in low regard those who talk/type so blithely about the nobility of service or the righteousness of these wars, when they are also so unwilling to stand up and do anything other than flap their gums/keyboards.

Putting a yellow ribbon on one's SUV is a cheap gesture. Putting on the uniform is not. If you believe in this war, then put your body where your mouth is. Go serve in the Army, for they need people more than the other services. And if you are too old to join the Army, then go sign up with a contractor and show your support for the war by going there and doing something.

(Not that that's ever going to happen, the 101st Keyboardists are very big about other people sacrificing for their ideals.)

But whatever you do, shut the fuck up about linking respect for the veterans with support for Bush's wars.

This is Not Memorial Day

It shouldn't be. (Track back my usual rant, going back a dozen years.)

We're losing the World War II servicemen and women, along with the millions who went into the factories and shipyards, by the thousands each day. The children who helped raise nine million tons of produce in Victory Gardens a year are not much younger.

The day that we remember what they did should be a solemn day. It should not be a day devoted to barbecues, traveling, shopping, and driving while intoxicated.

I know it'll never be moved back to the 30th. The travel and retail lobbyists would throw fits (and cash campaign donations). Those critters only offer lip service to those who have died in service (or after serving) to our nation. Those venal snakes don't give a shit about anything else.

But it's wrong and as long as I'm doing this blog, expect something like this post each year.

P.S., Don't be a chucklehead and thank living veterans for their service. Memorial Day honors the dead, not the living.

Memorial Day

Today, May 30th, is the traditional day for Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day, for the flags that were put on the graves of deceased veterans. It was meant to be a day of mournful reflection, with, at most, parades to commemorate the fallen.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died and continue to die in defense of this country and its interests. Many die years and decades afterwards from illnesses and wounds suffered in combat and even afterwards.

Why can't we have a day to remember them without it turning into a festival of commerce?

Memorial Day

This is the traditional day for Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day, for the flags that were put on the graves of deceased veterans. It was meant to be a day of mournful reflection, with, at most, parades to commemorate the fallen.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died in defense of this country and its interests.

Why can't we have a day to remember them without it turning into a festival of commerce?

Memorial Day

This should not be Memorial Day, as I've written about a few times.

This day is not supposed to be the unofficial start of Summer.

This day is not supposed to be an occasion for sales events at retail stores.

This day is supposed to be about one thing: Honoring the memories of those veterans who are no longer with us.

As you go about your day today, whether you're at the beach, the lake, or having a cookout with friends and family, please take a minute to remember the men and women whose lives were taken from them so that our freedom and our nation would continue to survive.

I Do Not and Will Not Buy At a "Memorial Day Sale"

I believe that any store that holds a "Memorial Day Sale" deserves to go bankrupt in very short order.

If they want to hold a "Beginning of Summer Sale" or a "Holiday Weekend Sale", that's fine by me.

But not a "Memorial Day Sale", for that is a profane act.

Need I elaborate on this?

This Should Not Be Memorial Day

(My usual rant, going back a dozen years.)

I know, I know. I beat this subject like a rented mule, every year. Actually, twice, on every year where the holiday of Memorial Day doesn't fall on the 30th. Maybe you're tired of it.

Too fucking bad.

We're losing the veterans of World War Two at a great clip. Those men and women were everywhere when I was a child. Now they're becoming as rare as veterans of the Spanish-American War were back then. The Korean War vets are not far behind them

When the last veteran of each war dies, please, let's not turn our backs on honoring them the way that fucking John Boehner did for the veterans of the Great War. But we will, if either the Majority Leader of the Senate or the Speaker of the House is as much of a worthless pissant as Boehner was.

Meanwhile, if you're doing any of the holiday shit today, spare a thought for those who paid the price so that you could.

And if you own a business that is holding a Memorial Day Sale, you know what you can go do with a rolling doughnut.