The Thing about Memorial Day

During Coronavirus, I have admired the different steps people have taken to show kindness when I thought it was going the way of the dinosaurs.

Just as my son with autism believes dinosaurs will make a come back, kindness has made a small comeback. We need, as a society, to take kindness to the next level. We should display honor and rememberance. Those are two words almost gone, too, but they go along with kindness.

As we celebrate Memorial Day, I hope we will bring the honor of, the rememberance of those men and women who sacrificed their lives. The thing about Memorial Day is that we don’t have to believe in the decision to go to war, but we can honor and remember those who go to fight for their country.

I worry in our society that our attention spans are so short. Some of my family members think I am crazy for my love of The Hunger Games, but Suzanne Collins started writing it while a reality TV show was on. The news also showed coverage of the Iraq War. She wrote the novels so kids would pay attention to the decisions their government makes and to examine society’s short attention span to events. Yet, in her inspiration, she remembers the Iraq War.

I remember the Iraq War on TV and then not long after when coverage of Afganistan and Iraq stopped.  Lives were lost in wars we either weren’t paying attention to or did not support.  They should be remembered.

It does not matter what I or you felt about the wars when it comes to those soldiers’ rememberance.

In 2008, I interviewed an Iraqi vet for a Veterans’ Day article. He was very uncomfortable about doing an interview in the first place. I was young, dumb, and a fresh out of college reporter. I thought I could make him feel comfortable enough for the interview.  He explained how he had been diagnosed with PTSD, and he remembered everything that happened in Iraq. Coming home, he felt Americans had forgotten those lives lost and the war.

Even with my trauma from a different situation that I learn to manage, I never say, “It was like a war zone.” I know that type of statement is inconsiderate to a veteran, to those who gave their lives, and that there is a different language for the tragedy that unraveled around me.

Some people say that Memorial Day is for those who sacrificed all. This is mostly true.  Why?

Because we need to remember those soldiers like the Iraqi War veteran I interviewed, who forever carry those lives lost in their memory. We need to honor the legacy of those who gave their lives. As we remember them, we honor those who served and suffered trauma. 

You can never walk through someone else’s trauma. You can never tell them the way things should be or how to view the world.

You can sit and listen. You can honor, remember, and show them kindness. 

 

I looked to the sun.

I thought it was done.

I dropped to my knees.

He said, “Get up please.”

Knees stayed put, digging holes in mud.

He grabbed my arm as I saw the blood.

“I will walk you through it. Retrace the steps where you walked.”

My mind sinks in quick sand to a place he could never walk.

By Rebecca T. Dickinson