You may think this article is coming too late since it is being published after Memorial Day. But now that Memorial Day has come and gone, it’s worth thinking about what it stands for and why the debate about Memorial Day is so important. “Controversial,” you might say. “What debate?”
Yes, there is a debate. On the other side are those who say that the purpose of Memorial Day is to be, or should be honor the soldiers who fought for us, or fought for our freedom. This is an idea we hear a lot on and around Memorial Day. We hear from presidents, governors, congressmen, mayors, military officers, and military analysts. On the other hand, there are those who say that the purpose of Memorial Day is to cry those who lost their lives in wars and think about how to prevent this from happening in the future. We hear this view from warmongers and those, in general, who question the motives and actions of the government.
I would prefer not to have such a debate. And that’s why I’m waiting. There are many people in the United States who lost their relatives or friends or were injured in foreign wars. It must be hard for them to hear or read armchair commentators like me talking about the “real meaning” of Memorial Day.
But the debate is important because, unfortunately, one of the main ways most Americans get their history is from what is said about national holidays, especially July 4th, Memorial Day, President’s Day and Veterans Day. There is so much emotion in those days that various lawyers can’t get away with historical falsities clouded by emotion. I think that’s why they fight so hard for their interpretation of Memorial Day: it’s a way to accomplish with emotion what is very difficult to accomplish with logical argument.
Exhibit A of the tendency to close debate with emotion is a recent essay by World Review Online, “Mystic Chords of Memory,” by editor Mackubin Thomas Owens. “Mac” Owens, as he is known to friends and colleagues, is an academic officer and professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Before I get to my criticism, I want to note that I spent a weekend at a conference with him about two years ago, and I like and respect him. He is a serious scholar with an important point of view that he expresses well. It is that fact, however, that makes his subject disturbing.
This is from David R. Henderson, “The Fight for Memorial Day,” antiwar.comMay 27, 2008.
On my Substack, I posted my entire 2006 piece on Memorial Day. This covers one of the same areas but also wraps up the Mac Owens controversy.
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