Memorial Day: Remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice

The stories of Americans, shown over and over again, dying alone in hospital rooms, their loved ones unable to be with them, haunt me.

We have been fighting a war these last months, an invisible war, trying to understand and conquer this virus.

Not since the Spanish Flu 100 years ago have we, and indeed the entire world, been held victim to such a novel virus.

This is why the idea of another world-wide pandemic has frightened us. As we have sheltered in place, we have been enveloped in a whole new kind of time. It’s a time to think, but it’s also a time of inactivity and the real fear of financial loss, and mental health.

We miss being able to see and touch those we love. We miss all the freedoms that seemed as natural as breathing just a few months ago. We are becoming restless and some are angry.

It is, I think, a perfect time to pause for our coming federal holiday. Monday, May 25 is Memorial Day.

We have set aside a special day to honor and mourn all of our country’s fallen service men and women. I first knew of it as Decoration Day when it was recognized on May 30, up until 1970.

Then the observance took on its more meaningful title, Memorial Day, and started to be honored on the fourth Monday of May.

The sheer magnitude of the deaths of war became clear to me when, as a child, I saw Gettysburg, and later Arlington Cemetery. The sea of crosses made a lasting and painful impression on my young mind.

I slowly understood that each marker represented not only the loss of a life given in service to their country, but also represented the tears and heartbreak of each of the fallen’s parents, siblings, spouse, and children. When I traveled to Washington D.C. about seven years ago, I went to see the Vietnam Wall.

The wall, containing a sea of names of the fallen, gave me a profound , almost physical punch to my gut. The Vietnam War had been my generation’s war, and many of my friends and classmates were there, young and naive, never to return. For years that war haunted me as I waited for the POW’s name on my bracelet to return.

Still possessing that bracelet, it has become a solid reminder of loss and I still hold it my duty to remember him close to my heart.

Our American service men and women have fought in so many wars that it staggers the mind, but none so sad as our Civil War( 1861-1865). where we fought on our own land, fought out of division. We fought out of a time of you or me and lost the unity of we.

More than 600,000 men were killed in that war, an ocean of blood spent.

Since the Civil War ended in 1865, there have been countless conflicts, like the Spanish American War, Philippines American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the War in Afghanistan.

The total number of Americans killed in U.S. wars is more than 1.1 million people, according to information from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense.

That is what Memorial Day is about. It may be hard to pull away our attention from the pandemic, but perhaps it also gives us some perspective. This Monday raise your flag, sing your favorite American anthem, salute or cross your heart, and stop, and remember the spirits of all those Americans who gave their very life for our Country.

And remember, we are the UNITED States of America.