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May 27, 2025 - Lionel Nation

07:49

Memorial Day: Honoring War or Glorifying It?

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	Every year, Memorial Day, I feel the same way.
	And I've got to be careful how I say this because invariably, somebody will take this the wrong way.
	But I hate Memorial Day.
	It's ghoulish.
	It's funereal.
	And I know people don't mean any harm by it.
	I know they don't mean to say the wrong thing.
	But we've got to stop this rote recitation of the usual substances.
	Look, Memorial Day...
	It was first known as Decoration Day, and it was marked by decorating graves with flowers and flags and wreaths, and the holiday then gained traction in both the northern and southern states over time.
	And in 1868, General John Logan Officially proclaimed May the 30th as a day of remembrance.
	And following World War I, the holiday expanded to honor all American military personnel who died in service.
	And then in 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day, a national holiday to be observed on the last Monday in May, ensuring a three-day weekend or holiday for remembrance.
	Memorial Day is not merely a day of mourning.
	It is not simply about remembering the fallen or visiting gravesites, you know, and not decorating, but adorning them with flags.
	It is, more profoundly, a national, some call it a national liturgy.
	That reinforces a deeply held American belief that military sacrifice is both warranted and necessary.
	That freedom, as we understand it, has always been paid for in blood.
	And more than that, listen carefully, that without the sacrifice of lives, liberty simply could not exist.
	We are taught, sometimes explicitly, often implicitly, That every death in uniform was not only meaningful but vital.
	We tell ourselves that someone who died in a rice paddy in Vietnam did so to keep Cleveland or Omaha or Phoenix free from the creeping tide of communism.
	That a Marine lost in Fallujah secured the future of democracy in Topeka.
	You know, we may not say it so plainly, but the underlying narrative is always this.
	Your freedom...
	That it was natural.
	It was a quid pro quo, so to speak.
	It was not a tragedy.
	It was an investment.
	To challenge this belief, to even complain about this, is to risk being called unpatriotic or disrespectful or worse.
	But Memorial Day, for all its solemnity, does more than just mourn.
	It exalts.
	It takes the deaths of soldiers and elevates them beyond personal loss into the realm of national necessity.
	And in so doing, it makes death palatable.
	It moralizes it.
	It turns war into sacrament.
	And that is precisely the danger because the more we lionize death in uniform, The more we justify its continuation and the more we treat war and the dead as proof of freedom's cost.
	You know, the less likely we are to challenge the premise of war itself.
	We're not going to stop war because, after all, this is just war ensures our freedom.
	No war, no freedom.
	We no longer ask whether the fight was worth it.
	We simply say they died for our freedom and let the conversation end there.
	Look, this is not a condemnation in any way of those who served or those who grieved.
	Absolutely not.
	On the contrary, it's a recognition of the gravity.
	Of their sacrifice.
	And a plea to take that gravity seriously.
	To stop using the dead as some automatic validation for policy.
	To stop hiding moral ambiguity behind marble monuments.
	Memorial Day, as it stands, does not just remember the dead.
	It legitimizes them.
	It wraps national policy in emotional sanctity.
	And if we are not careful...
	Perhaps the highest form of respect we can offer the fallen is not a parade or a barbecue or a moment of silence.
	Perhaps, maybe, maybe, it is a national moment of clarity.
	Where we ask not only what they died for, but whether we are too quick to need such sacrifice in the first place.
	Let us honor them, yes, absolutely.
	But let us also think hard about the world that required their death, and whether we have done enough to ensure that fewer follow.
	Remember what this day is about.
	Remember this.
	But if we truly want to honor their lives, and to Honor their loss.
	We will do everything in our power to see that war stops.
	We laud it.
	We praise it.
	We romanticize battle.
	And sometimes when we have podcasts and individuals who talk about the valor of SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force and Fallujah and Marines and the latest guns, that's great.
	It's sometimes little boy stuff, but we're kind of losing our position.
	Anybody who's ever been in battle, I have not.
	I have not.
	But do I truly have to be in battle?
	Do I truly have to be in war?
	Must I be in the military to stand up for the premise that we laud and we applaud and we herald death?
	And destruction and violence too much?
	Celebrate their lives by making sure that we never have another war again.
	That we never have any more additions to any roster.
	And by the way, this list does not include people who've died in battle, but those who've died because of alcoholism or drug abuse or suicide.
	Because we love you when you come in.
	Oh, we'll promise you the world, the recruitment.
	But once you're out, you're on your own.
	We'll pat you on the back, say thank you for your service, and be on your way.
	We don't want to be bothered with you anymore.
	Quit telling us about what you've been through.
	Come on, it's the price of freedom.
	Don't act like you're not, you know, lucky and honored, and I'm sure you are, and you're privileged to have lost.
	I know that's not the way it's intended.
	I know that.
	I know that.
	Just think about this.
	And please, never say, Happy Memorial Day.

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