Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa Scooter and Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle.

Thoughts on Memorial Day

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“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

― Dwight D. Eisenhower

Names of fallen soldiers etched in granite
The names of fallen soldiers etched in granite at the Pennsylvania Military Museum.

For the Fallen on Memorial Day

So many names etched in stone. So many lives sacrificed in our country’s wars. It’s difficult to not feel a great sadness for what each of their families must have felt. And at the same time gratitude for their actions that has produced a debt that never can be repaid. At best, I can remember them. On Memorial Day, and each time I walk through the Shrine at the Pennsylvania Military Museum.

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Honoring the Dead

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view of a horizon in farm field
A gray day in Central Pennsylvania

Thoughts on Memorial Day

Memorial Day has special significance in Boalsburg, a small central Pennsylvania town that claims to have started the observance of this holiday. Add to that a shrine to the soldiers lost by the 28th Division of the United States Army at the Pennsylvania Military Museum and you have an ongoing reminder of the sacrifices made by men and women in this country.

With less than 10 percent of our population being veterans or serving actively in the military we owe them a debt of gratitude that’s difficult to repay. We owe them more than a vacation day disguised as a celebration of their service.

Granite monument to the battles of the Civil War
A granite monument at the Pennsylvania Military Museum remembering some of the campaigns of the Civil War.

Most of us never had the chance to sacrifice for our country until now. Until a global pandemic has swept across the land leaving our people and economy shivering in surprise and fear. Even the rosy predictions from the White House now peg the death toll at 135 thousand citizens by the end of the summer.

Service and sacrifice are at hand now. Each of us has the opportunity to honor the blood shed by our military through our own choices. To reflect their selfless dedication in our own behavior. To put the well being of our friends and family, neighbors and strangers, ahead of ourselves. We have the opportunity to celebrate the fallen men and women and reflect their sacrifice in our own.

I can’t say what that is for anyone but me.

Today I keep my distance from others as I can. And when I can’t I respect them by wearing a face mask. I am generous and give as I can. I remind myself often that all that I have in this life came with a cost. And I continue to hold in my heart that the United States of America a place of kind and honorable people.

I offer my best wishes to each of you on this Memorial Day.