This weekend, we mark the unofficial beginning of summer across the United States with Memorial Day. It’s an incredibly joyous time, generally met with gatherings, warmer weather, barbecues, laughs, and travel. And while we celebrate with friends and family, it’s also a weekend of tribute, where each of us as Americans are called to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our nation.
Sometimes amidst all the activity, it’s easy to forget the reason for the extended weekend. It’s a sobering holiday in some ways. Memorial Day is not Veterans Day. It is on Memorial Day, this solemn occasion – when we set aside time to remember and honor all those who have sacrificed their lives to preserve the freedom that we all enjoy and hold so very dear.
A poignant reminder of the immense price of freedom - as so many have paid with their lives in order for us to enjoy the kinds of festivities that we will enjoy this weekend. We should also be grateful that ‘while we slept’ last night there were tens of thousands of American service men and women around the world in distant locations – protecting our freedom.
At the same time, Memorial Day offers us a unique opportunity to better understand our own relationship to sacrifice and service. It stands to recognize the staggering toll of men and women of all creeds and colors who have laid down their lives in the name of our United States of America. We honor those brave Americans who have fought for our nation’s ideals and given their lives in the effort. While Memorial Day may be just that, a single day, we enjoy our unique freedoms 365 days out of the year. This holiday places a responsibility on each of our shoulders, beyond this weekend, to honor the legacies of those who carry the heaviest burden for the preservation of our freedoms.
Before Memorial Day became a federal holiday, it was primarily observed by the unique few who fought for our country and the families of those who had fallen. Yet when it became federalized in 1971, it put military service and its relationship to our liberties we tend to take for granted, into the spotlight. It demonstrated to us as a nation that there is in fact a cost much more profound than a monetary one when it comes to safeguarding the things we love and cherish. And so this Memorial Day, I appeal to anyone who reads this week’s Sunshine Report to not only observe this sacred holiday, but use it to renew your own commitment throughout the whole of the year to never taking for granted the freedoms we hold dear, and for which so many have sacrificed.
