Memories of Memorial Day

This largely autobiographical piece was written on Memorial Day 2020 with minor edits performed on 28 May 2022. As a preface to this article, it is useful to consider the etymology of the word memorial. Memorative was the Middle English word for "having to do with memory." It was derived from the Old French word memoratif which in turn came from the Latin memorativis. All suggest "of, or belonging to, memory." The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) term is *(s)mer- "to remember."

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As I sit here on Memorial Day 2020, I’ve just read a report in The Sun that less than half of the American population knows the true meaning of Memorial Day. It is not really surprising, but it is certainly a sad statistic. While I never considered my family to be a military family, I was raised with a respect for those who served in the Armed Forces—even if the wars they fought were the result of some politician’s failures or foibles.

Memorial Day always comes with fond memories of my father. Dad was a child psychologist by profession—but those who knew him well understood that his childhood dream was to be a professional baseball player. He was a lefty who idolized Ted Williams; perhaps the greatest left-handed hitter in the history of baseball. With the arrival of spring, Dad would take me to the old abandoned lot across the street from our home to “warm me up” for the “season” that was to unfold. Mind you, these were the days when I was too young to even try-out for the Little League teams that played in my town.  The “big game” that was to come would pit us against my uncle and my cousins during our annual family barbecue on Memorial Day.

As most Memorial Days of my childhood arrived, I anticipated our annual ball game as well as the seemingly endless supply of hotdogs and hamburgers washed down with fountains of Coca-Cola. Prior to the day’s festivities however Dad would usher me off to a nearby Memorial Day parade. He had raised me to respect the military—and that I did. I recall thinking that, besides my birthday, my two favorite holidays were Christmas and Armed Forces Day. For on the latter, each year we would visit a military base of some sort and partake in the events arranged for families and children in those days. The Memorial Day parades featured all sorts of marching bands playing patriotic songs—many of which I knew by heart. But my greatest thrill was to catch sight of the soldiers who marched in the parade. My memory, perhaps faulty, is that they were arranged chronologically—with those who served in our country’s most recent conflicts to pass our view first. I was particularly in awe of those marchers who served during the Second World War as my childhood heroes portrayed such men in television series like Combat and The Rat Patrol and movies like The Battle of the Bulge. I also recall a special reverence when those who served in the First World War marched by.

Dad made sure however that the lesson of the day was never lost. While we honored those marching, and saluted as Old Glory went by, this holiday was to remind us of those who gave their lives in our country’s wars. It was a solemn time of commemoration for those who fought and died. As a child, I thought more generally of those who gave their lives, and not very specifically of my own ancestors. At the time, I didn't really know of any relatives who died for our country. I knew that my great-grandfather had served during the First World War and injured one of his fingers through some sort of accident. And there was Dad’s Uncle Roy who was a member of our local DAV (Disabled American Veterans) chapter. Uncle Roy had served during World War Two on the U.S.S. Conway DD 507 in the Pacific. The Destroyer saw numerous attacks and earned twelve battle stars. I never quite understood Uncle Roy’s disability, as he seemed fine to me. In those days my parents would simply whisper that he was “shell-shocked” from the war—something I later learned would be more appropriately labeled Post-traumatic stress disorder.

As the years rolled by, I did hear stories of Dad’s Uncle Nick. Nick, it seemed, was the most beloved of my grandfather’s brothers and sisters. All spoke reverently of him with love and melancholy still noticeable after all these years. As the Second World War neared its end, Uncle Nick was killed in Krefeld, Germany while serving in the 628^th Tank Destroyer Battalion of the Fifth Armored Division of the First Army. Years later, while researching the genealogical record of my family, I discovered a detailed history of the 628^th Tank Destroyers and the sad news that Nick had been killed by “friendly fire” when an American plane dropped a bomb on his Company.

My genealogical research also resulted in the discovery that my grandmother’s great-great grandfather had served and was killed during the American Civil War. Search as I would, I was unable to gain clarity on which side he fought for in this bloodiest of our conflagrations. In a handwritten document from my Uncle Roy, it was explained that his grandmother was born in Richmond, Virginia—her father then likely fought for the Confederacy. It seems however that my Civil War ancestor's daughter ended up in an orphanage in Richmond, New York following her father’s death. Were the two Richmonds simply confused in my uncle’s note? Does it matter?

When we gathered for the Memorial Day ball game, my Dad and uncle liked to use a “hard ball.”  As counter-intuitive as it may seem, we only graduated to a Wiffle ball when my cousins and I got older. Dad, being a child psychologist, would always throw the first pitch directly at my cousin Rich. The intent wasn’t to hurt him but to back him away from the plate—and to make him leery about the subsequent pitches that were to come. As awful as it sounds today, that pitch was a tradition, and as sure as Lucy would pull back the football from Charlie Brown’s failed attempt to kick, the ball was headed directly for my cousin.

Memorial Day was a time for family. We would laugh and quaff soda while stuffing ourselves with burgers and dogs. The adults sat around drinking Budweiser and smoking an occasional cigar. The American flag waived proudly at the front door. The music of Neil Diamond served as an acoustic backdrop for the day.

As my memories merge with my thoughts today, I better appreciate why Memorial Day is an important time to raise a horn to our ancestors. It is a day to recall those who fought in our nation's wars –-and especially those who paid the highest price. It is a day also to think of those who fought in earlier times in distant lands. Surely we all have ancestors, perhaps forgotten to all but Urðr, that fateful norn of all that was, who gave their lives so that we might live. Let us honor those who fell in battles that even preceded the founding of our country. Consider their valiant loss of life without which we would not exist. Let us also thrill to the tales of those bravest of warriors—the Einherjar—selected by Odin himself to fight the forces of chaos in the days of Ragnarök. I care not for the specific cause for which my ancestors fought or gave their lives. Their honor and their bravery and their lives themselves form an unbroken chain that connects us through time. Indeed from the foot of Yggdrasil, that cosmological tree from which no man knows where its roots may run, our lives are an unending chain from Urðr (that which was) through Verðandi (that which is becoming) and onto Skuld (that which should be). We ourselves are but one link in the chain between our ancestors and our descendants.

On this Memorial Day, and all those that are to come, love your families; enjoy your barbecues; but most certainly remember the reason for the day!