How to Honor the Fallen on Memorial Day

How should we best honor the fallen warriors this and every Memorial Day?

We could decorate their graves as was done on many a Decoration Day from the Civil War on until the day was renamed. Sales and barbecues are fine. But the seas of white monuments should makes us pause from our holiday activities.

We can thank those who put themselves in harm’s way for us with something more heartfelt than a perfunctory “Thank you for your service.” Maybe even improve their housing, health care. Perhaps make VA hospitals and educational benefits less bureaucratic.

My Uncle Thomas Kon was the son of Polish immigrants who chose to be Americans. He died over Belgium in his B-17. We could honor him and many other immigrants and children of immigrants who serve by recognizing they are American by choice, not just by happenstance of birth.

How should we best honor the fallen warriors this and every Memorial Day? Maybe by recognizing that we are all Americans, that our heritage is best remembered as the ideas and ideals we struggle always to live up to, and that our political disagreements should not erase the mutual respect we feel for each other as citizens. The fallen served to protect those ideals and the rights of citizenship from enemies of both.

Perhaps the best way to honor the fallen this and every Memorial Day is to be the best citizens we can be as we reach out across these graves to our political foes and together say, “We will strive to live in ways that better honor the fallen and the ideas and ideals they died for every day of our lives.” That doesn’t seem like near enough given their ultimate sacrifices. But it might suffice.