One-hundred-and-sixty years ago this week, Union and Confederate armies engaged in the First Battle of Corinth in Mississippi, a battle that would be “won” by the Union and set the groundwork for Gen. U.S. Grant to later claim victory at Vicksburg. By war’s end, about 215,000 Americans had perished in battle.
One-hundred-and-five years ago, the first American soldiers were being prepared to ship out to Europe to the battlefields of World War I. By war’s end, more than 53,000 Americans would be among the war dead.
Eighty years ago this week, American and allied troops serving in the military in the Pacific were facing a daunting enemy. The empire of Japan had taken Bataan, Tulagi, Corregidor and Burma. The U.S. Navy was on the precipice of what would be one of the greatest sea battles of the war at Midway. By war’s end, close to 300,000 Americans would be killed in combat.
Seventy years ago this week, the Korean War was entering its third year. By war’s end, there would be about 36,000 Americans killed in battle.
Fifty years ago this week, the Easter Offensive by the North Vietnamese was underway and would continue through the fall. By war’s end, there would be more than 47,000 Americans who died in combat.
We need not go on, nor even venture further back in the history of our nation to dramatize how solemn an occasion this day is.
It is not a day of celebration, nor a holiday to glorify war. Rather, Memorial Day is a day of remembrance, a day of honor and a day of respect.
It is a day that, especially now as war still rages in Ukraine and our nation endures the sadness of the elementary school shooting in Texas, provides a time to pause, a time to reflect. The coronavirus continues to ravage, now accomplishing what no war has done in the history of this United States of America in claiming more than 1 million lives.
Still, it is important we do not ignore those men and women who’ve gone before us in service to our country in the military.
It is their service which in large part ensures we continue this day as a nation of democracy and a nation of laws, a nation well able to endure the challenges of a global pandemic and to hopefully find the civility necessary to address issues that tear us apart whether it be gun violence, immigration or abortion rights.
It is now 247 years since the first shots of the American Revolution were fired just after daybreak on April 19 in the little town of Lexington, thrusting the farmer-colonists of our yet-to-be-born nation into war.
At every turn since then, when the nation has called for those willing to wear the uniform of our nation in service around the world and here at home, there has been no shortage of people willing to do so. They are people who entered the service knowing full well they might not return.
Black, white, Asian, Native American, no culture, no sex, no age has been spared when war has taken its toll on our country. For the past century, through two world wars and onto Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and in other engagements around the world, our war dead all deserve our honor and respect this Memorial Day
Last August, 23-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, who had known since elementary school that he wanted to be in the military, was reported to be the last of the 13 U.S. service members to die after the suicide bombing in Kabul, the final American fatality of our nation’s 20-year war in Afghanistan.
“He just wanted to serve his country. It’s all he wanted, (and) he thought that was the best way he could help people,” his widow said.
Some communities this day will hold Memorial Day observances and parades to honor the memory of those lost in the too many wars our nation has witnessed. Their service must never be forgotten, never trivialized nor taken for granted.
As Gen. John A. Logan said in his order establishing the observance of Memorial Day on May 5, 1868, we must all ensure “no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of (a) free and undivided republic.”
So, as you prepare perhaps to gather with friends, fire up the grill for a barbecue or head to the beach, take a quiet moment to reflect on those who didn’t come home. For their families, this day will forever be a day to remember. We should never forget them.