Each year, our Moonhowlings poet laureate, George Harris very kindly prepares his reflections for Memorial Day. George entered the Navy during the Korean War at the tender age of 18. He served in Vietnam as well. Thank you for your service, Captain Harris, and for your reflections on this Memorial Day weekend, 2014.
MEMORIAL DAY 2014
Capt. George Harris
A few days after this Memorial Day, I will celebrate my 81st birthday. And as I reflect back on the past eight decades, I find that our nation has been engaged in war for half of my lifetime. In my lifetime I have seen or been involved in four wars: World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the on-going war in Iraq and Afghanistan—a total of 40 years.
Since our beginning as a nation, our Armed Forces have been in something like 319 “Military Engagements”, including one war among ourselves. Our Civil War resulted in the death of 625,000 Americans in a war that pitted fathers against sons and brothers against brothers. Our second most costly war was World War II, which cost us 405,399 dead. All these “engagements” have cost us something on the order of 275,000,000 lives lost and uncountable wounded whose lives were changed forever. And this does not count those events where we only gave material or fiscal aid nor does it count operations by the CIA.
General Robert E. Lee is alleged to have said to General James Longstreet at the Battle of Fredericksburg, “It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.” And General George Patton supposedly said of war, “I love it. God help me, I do love it so.” While the veracity of these statements is questionable, it does seem that we Americans do love war—we have fought so many and thus have so many dead to remember. Hardly a family in America has not had someone involved in one of our skirmishes.
On this Memorial Day, soldiers of the 3rd Infantry (The Old Guard) will carry out the 40-year old tradition known as “Flags In”. Nearly 275,000 flags will be placed in front of tombstones and niches at Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Airmen’s and Soldier’s Home Cemetery. Speeches will be made at many Veterans’ cemeteries across the nation and perhaps the president will speak and lay a wreath at our national Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
And this year marks the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Arlington National Cemetery where the first national Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30, 1868. The federal government seized Arlington House, General Robert E. Lee’s estate, for failure to pay a tax bill of $92.07. On May 13, 1864, 21-year-old Private William Christman of Pennsylvania, who had died of peritonitis, became the first military man buried at Arlington. To ensure the house would forever be uninhabitable for the Lees, Quartermaster General Montgomery C.Meigs directed graves to be placed as close to the mansion as possible, and in 1866 he ordered the remains of 2,111 unknown Civil War soldiers killed on battlefields near Washington, D.C., to be placed inside a vault in the Lees’ rose garden. Out of this act of spite was born our Nation’s most sacred burial ground.
It is well that we remember today President Abraham Lincoln’s speech at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
As we gather across our great Nation let us remember the brave men and women, living and dead, who have consecrated the ground wherein they lie.
God bless those who serve our Nation in uniform and God bless this Nation.
Thanks to all who have served.
Thanks for your very timely reflections on a Memorial Day 2014. It is quite feat to quote Lee, Patton, and Lincoln in a short piece.
My thanks go to those who have served and to the families of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. On this 2014 Memorial Day, we should remember those who have to “carry on” after a loved one has been lost in Service to our Nation.
Each and every one of George’s Memorial Day reflections has been publishable, in my opinion. He does such a great job, I think.
Thanks for your comments, Kelly, and thanks again George, for taking the time to reflect for us.
The Memorial Day program on public TV from the Mall
tonight was a fine way to “get in the mood” for tomorrow’s
memorial ceremonies. Always try to attend the local one.
It s a great mood setter, isn’t it? I recorded it. Great show!
George, thanks for your respectful and thoughtful offering. The data on the Civil War is particularly impactful- if you looked at the deaths vs population then and now, it would be like 6.2 million Americans lost. We obviously still haven’t completely recovered from that war.
If only we humans could find a better way to settle our differences. The elderly leaders in all countries are all too ready, and the young lions all too eager to kill in the name of principle or religion or territory or some long-ago slight.
Let’s honor and remember those who served and those who gave their all for our country, but let’s also pray for a time in the future when there won’t be any more added to the list of those we memorialize.
Standing ovation for Middleman. Your population proportion makes for staggering statistics. The equivalent of 6.2 Americans lost should catch our attention.
I have grown horrified over the Civil War over the years. Simply horrified. There had to be another way to settle the many unsettled issues that war started over. There just had to be. I am a firm believer that absolutely nothing was worth that kind of loss in terms of human life and property. There just had to be another way and smarter people could have discovered other ways.
I am not so sure we are far enough away in time to really evaluate how horrible it was. My great great grandfather was in the Civil War. That’s not very many greats when you think about it. My grandfather would be the great great grandfather of my grandchildren. That’s screwed up!!
There are those who cry out, well it preserved the Union. Other people cheer that it ended slavery. Still others stand up for states’ rights. I will never be convinced that any of those “causes” were worth the lives of 600,000 troops. Those figures don’t begin to include those permanently maimed or the loss of civilian life of all races.
Sorry…off on a tangent ….
Thanks George.
Unfortunately, the meaning behind Memorial Day gets lost (as with other holidays) with the start of summer and other things. Maybe getting together with friends and family to have a BBQ has become our way of remembering our heroes.
There is way too much cross over with Veterans Day to suit me. Even the Memorial Day on the Mall really wasn’t to honor the dead but to honor the military and the wounded. While I have no problem honoring the living, That really isn’t the purpose of Memorial Day. The Washington Post had a good article about the differences.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/26/why-memorial-day-is-confused-with-veterans-day/?tid=pm_pop
Thanks to all for the generous comments. Yes, the two holidays have been “blended” way too much. Name changes have not helped and, like every holiday, they have been become synonymous with sales of every possible type. No one wants to leave out those who have or are serving, particularly those who have suffered grievous wounds. Call it “political correctness” I suppose.
Maybe we just need a blended national holiday. Everyone seems to want to do it anyway.
George, thanks again for your Memorial Day piece. You truly are our Moonhowlings poet laureate.