Memorial Day

America is a particularly warlike nation. Since our founding, we’ve been at war every nineteen years out of twenty. Millions of Americans have moved through our armed forces. Over a million killed in our eleven wars and dozens (hundreds?) of assorted military actions. Compared to other nations, it’s not a lot - Russia lost 6.7 million just in World War II – but any one death is one too many for the family that must bear it. It’s right that we have a day to pause to remember those who gave their lives in service to the nation.

Memorial Day is a holiday in the truest sense. It is a holy day, a day in which it is possible to feel awe and wonder towards those who faced the unimaginable.

It doesn’t matter the war. The manner of their death is irrelevant. Race, religion, political beliefs. None of it matters. Only that they were American and that they didn’t make it home.

Memorial Day also marks the unofficial start of summer which, to my mind, does nothing to cheapen the holiday. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. As we remember our war dead, it’s also good and right that we look ahead to warm weather and spending time with family and friends as the sun sets late. I like that Memorial Day kicks off a season of fun. (I’m going to set aside the fact, for the moment, that summer is my least favorite season because of all the things I enjoy doing, “having fun” is at the bottom of the list.) It seems right to me that a moment of solemnity should precede moments of joy, the way a few words of gratitude kick off Thanksgiving.

This Memorial Day I am in Italy, on the Amalfi Coast, looking out over the vast waters where, just to the east of here, Americans troops landed on September 9, 1943, part of Operation Avalanche. Over 2,000 American and British soldiers lost their lives in the mission. From there, they marched north towards heavy fighting at the Gustav Line, and then on to Rome, which fell to the Allies in June of 1944. It took them almost a year of fighting to reach the city I drove from today in two and a half hours.

The weather here is beautiful, the scenery incredible, and the potato chips next to me on the bed not great. I’m happy that I get to be happy in a place like this because of men like my great uncle, whose plane was shot down in the skies over Austria in that same war. Just one man among the million we honor today.

It always feels wrong to say “Happy Memorial Day,” but despite the solemnity around it, I do think it’s right that we celebrate Memorial Day. I think every soldier must fight in the hopes that the next generation will not have to. That hope, however naïve, remains. Happy Memorial Day.