Our town’s Memorial Day ceremony is about to begin (live stream):
The speaker is Brian Mast, a veteran who represents us in Congress and who has been at odds with the Biden administration regarding U.S. support for continued Hamas rule in Gaza.
I arranged a brick for my father, who was drafted and served as a corporal in the NYC area (my dad was born in 1930, so he was 23 years old when he went into the Army, a late start due to a college deferment).
My dad was not killed while serving in the military (unclear how that could have happened other than via a car/bus accident or if a filing cabinet had fallen on him) so, fortunately, he is not one of those for whom the day was established.
Readers: What are you doing to observe Memorial Day?
Related:
- Memorial Day reading: The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
- Memorial Day thought: Will coronaplague bring us years of peace? (a 2020 prediction that has been proven wrong; “Do countries that have shut down their societies, schools, and economies have the will or the wealth to go to war? What would they fight for? To conquer a territory that is also shut down and packed with inhabitants who are entirely dependent on government welfare?”)
- Memorial Day Thoughts (2016, about WWII B-17 pilots)
Post-ceremony update…
About 250 people showed up.
My father’s brick is in the top left corner of the engraved-so-far bricks:
Brian Mast kept his remarks nonpartisan and patiently met with constituents afterwards:
The police bloodhound was popular:
At least one person arrived in style (Pontiac GTO; possibly circa 1965):
While I am fortunate that I did not lose any family or friends during a war, my day will be spent thinking of those that were and thanking them for all they did to make our country great!
Having some BBQ and working on this Memorial Day.
From a line of males serving in military for about a century and a half at time of when my service finished. My grandfathers were lucky, they survived their wars with non-crippling wounds and shell-shock induced concussions which they recovered from in weeks, in some cases remaining in fight. All my grandfathers’ brothers died fighting WWII. So I was going to toast their memory but filled my weekly poison limit yesterday during Lag BaOmer festivities.
So not the guy who wrote the Scarlett Letter.