I once worked with a lot of Israelis at a company in Jersey City. After one Memorial Day, one of the men asked me why people celebrate Memorial Day. You go to the beach, open your pools, have barbecues. I don’t understand it.
I told him that people remember the fallen with parades and planting flags and flowers in military cemeteries. There are often messages read at the cemeteries or at places like V.F.W. halls, chapels at military bases, etc.
But after the ceremonies people remember the fallen by celebrating the freedoms those men and women paid the ultimate price for. At least that’s how it was explained to me.
I told him it’s not that way anymore for most Americans. It’s not like Israel where war or the threat of war is a daily reality, and those sacrifices are felt more keenly. Almost everyone in Israel serves in the military. Almost everyone in the U.S. doesn’t, and so I told him he was right. A lot of people think of the day as a day off, a day to go to the beach.
I guess that’s good and bad.
“A nation that forgets its past, has no future.” Sir Winston Churchill”