This is what Americans affectionately call Memorial Day weekend. The average white collar working stiff and most blue collar ones have three days, sometimes even four off. It heralds the beginning of summer. If it isn't storming, the public swimming pools open for the season. Theme parks, amusement parks, national parks, state parks, the lot of them are flooded with people. Hotel rates hike for tourists, gas prices hike for everyone, and the beer and BBQ flows.
Every year, from everywhere, I hear a lot of guff from veterans and non-veterans about how selfish the American people have gotten. We've forgotten what Memorial Day is all about in our lust to race out someplace and "celebrate" the holiday with friends and family. Memorial Day used to be on May 30th, no matter what day of the week it fell on. In 1971, the National Holiday Act changed it to fall on the last Monday in May. In 2002, the VFW said, "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's observance of Memorial Day."
As he does every two years, Senator Daniel Inouye from Hawaii, introduced Bill S70 into the Senate on January 4, 2007 to change Memorial Day back to its traditional date. It's stalled in committee and will probably, as usual, die there.
I'm a bit ambivalent about this issue, I believe that it's important for Americans to spend a day commemorating lost servicemembers and remember why they were lost in the first place. More than Independence Day, Memorial Day touches at the price our way of life costs. The hotels, someone's gas, the BBQ cost more than the cash we fork over. It came at the price of someone's willingness to fight and die for. I also think it's a lost cause. You can't force people to think about military folks who have died fighting for whatever reason. You can't make them sit back and realize what the military is for and why they do their thing. You can't make them commemorate anything. No one in Congress will vote to get rid of the the three day weekend because too many of their constituents will hate it.
It's ironic, I think. They died for our freedom. Whether the fight itself was over the freedom or not, I'm pretty sure that most of our military folks fought because they believed they were fighting for our freedom. And now we sit, watching the day designed to remember them slip away into a weekend party. We're exercising that freedom the dead held so dear and some of us want the government to make sure there's only one choice to make.
My family, we change our usual goings on for Memorial Day weekend. We stay home because we don't want to get killed by the drunks whooping it up. We don't go to VFW, American Legion, DAV, or any number of Memorial Day commemoration activities because other than myself, none of the veterans in my home can tolerate crowds and they certainly can't tolerate what they view as hypocrisy. I'm not sure where that comes in at, precisely, but it has to do with the always-been-civilians that just don't get it because they've never been there. I don't really listen to it because it's not worth hearing.
I think some veterans, my own especially, are too busy being offended because people are doing what they fought for them to do in the first place. Sure, those people are selfish inconsiderate ingrates, but that's people for you. I think, instead, the government could do something constructive with the retailer's observance of Party Day Weekend. Add an optional surcharge to all purchases made over the weekend to benefit veterans or something.
Still, I think I'll write all of my congresspeople and tell them that I support S70.
