David Murdock Column: On Memorial Day 2023 (and how best to acknowledge it)

It’s always been my opinion that we, as a nation, have a strange way of memorializing Memorial Day. It means different things to different people, of course, but many regard it as not much more than a mandated three-day weekend or as the unofficial start to summer.

While doing some preliminary research for this column, I Googled “Memorial Day.” The results were fascinating. Of course, the top results had to do with the history and meaning of Memorial Day, which is to commemorate those who have died in military service to the United States.

However, just a few results down, Google suggested “Memorial Day sales.” That’s not uncommon at all for three-day weekends to have associated sales connected to them, but still.

To be honest, I don’t really remember much about my family’s celebrations of Memorial Day past one really big memory. We usually grilled out, like most families, but there was always a “war movie marathon” on one channel or the other, and Dad and I usually watched several of our favorite movies that day.

That’s likely where I first saw some of my favorite movies, most notably the 1941 film “Sergeant York,” for which Gary Cooper won the Oscar as Best Actor. The death scene of “Pusher” Ross, played by George Tobias, is one of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever seen in a war movie. Other favorites include John Wayne in "The Sands of Iwo Jima” (1949), which was one of Dad’s favorites, too, and the 1962 ensemble epic “The Longest Day.”

That’s one thing, and our commemoration of war memorials is another. We do a good job with battlefields and national cemeteries. However, our commemoration of warships has always puzzled me. Take aircraft carriers and battleships, for example, to cut down the number of museum ships to a manageable level. There are 15 such preserved ships — five aircraft carriers and 10 battleships.

Of the aircraft carriers, all but one of the five preserved as museum ships are Essex class carriers from World War II, the other being a Midway class carrier from late in the war. All are historically noteworthy, but arguably the most decorated of all U.S. Navy warships was the USS Enterprise (CV-6) which earned 20 battle stars during World War II. She was scrapped in the late 1950s, despite preservation efforts, with only parts of her being preserved.

Of the ten battleships preserved as museum ships, two of them are sunken wrecks in Pearl Harbor — the USS Arizona and USS Utah. Of the remaining eight, all but one date from World War II.  The one that predates that war is the USS Texas, which is undergoing intensive preservation efforts right now.

The USS Massachusetts is moored in Fall River, Massachusetts; she was a combatant in one of only three battles in World War II in which American battleships fired directly on enemy battleships, the Naval Battle of Casablanca.

The only American battleship that fired on and sank an enemy battleship one-on-one during World War II was the USS Washington. During the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, she — along with the battleship USS South Dakota and a screen of destroyers — engaged a Japanese force containing the HIJMS Kirishima, two heavy cruisers, and a screen of destroyers during a night battle.

The South Dakota was knocked out of the battle early because of electrical and power problems, but the Washington and Kirishima exchanged fire, which resulted in the Japanese battlewagon being reduced to a burning wreck. She either sank or was scuttled by her own navy the next morning.

And … the USS Washington was sold for scrap in the early 1960s.

We do a better job of preserving tanks and military aircraft, likely for two reasons. Obviously, there were so many more of both, so more examples survived. Also, they’re far less expensive to acquire and maintain as memorials than a ship is.

While researching, I also searched for Memorial Day events in Alabama. I found lots of them, but most were concerts that seem to have very little to do with commemorating the men and women who have died in our nation’s service. There were even a few “farmers’ markets” listed under “Memorial Day events,” the logic of which escapes me.

However, if the point of Memorial Day is to memorialize those who have given their lives for our country, how should we best do it? I’m not sure. Holidays like Memorial Day tend to evolve over time in terms of how we celebrate them.

In fact, I was surprised to learn in my research that the holiday itself was only standardized, in the form we now know it, in 1971. Although the celebration of it in some form dates back to just after the Civil War, it was only mandated as the last Monday of May in that year. Previously, it was always May 30.

What I do know is this: My personal observance of Memorial Day has evolved since I’ve been a teacher. To my direct knowledge, none of my students have died in service. However, Memorial Day will not pass without my thinking of all those ROTC students I taught who came to class, one day in September long ago, with a terrible resolve on their faces. I pray they all made it home.

David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted at murdockcolumn@yahoo.com. The opinions reflected are his own.     

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: David Murdock on Memorial Day