Opinion: Observing Memorial Day: Remembering sacrifices of those who fought for freedom.
As we approach Memorial Day, we cannot forget the struggles and sacrifices of those who helped ensure our freedom. Memorial Day focuses especially on those who “more than life their country loved” and enabled America to rise above the dark pages of our history and be a beacon for freedom in the world.
In the town where I once lived, the high school band met at the city park yearly on Memorial Day to play various commemorative songs. The most moving one for me was “My Buddy” since a friend of mine was killed on “Heartbreak Ridge” in Korea. Others will remember family members and friends who gave their lives or suffered grievous wounds, both seen and unseen.
We remember the sacrifices of those in the armed services going back to the Civil War, but further back to the founding of the nation. However, we should add other groups to this recognition. I served as a chaplain to Merchant Marine veterans for about 10 years. The Merchant Marine suffered over 9,500 deaths in the struggle against the Axis powers of Italy, Germany and Japan, a higher proportion than any of the other services.
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Those serving in the Merchant Marine were not recognized as veterans until 1987, in spite of the many lost in the dark waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, and others coming home to no special benefits. Also, many women served through flying planes overseas to deliver them to the armed services and some of their planes went down. Many people will remember family members and friends who never came back because of their sacrifice in the struggle to maintain our “land of the free and home of the brave.” It is not possible to recognize all the sacrifices that people suffered to establish our freedoms. As a boy, I remember a good family friend who lost his leg as an ambulance driver in World War I. We should remember all these sacrifices that enabled us as a nation to continue to exist.
All of this is to illustrate how freedom that was so important for the founding of America in the 18th century became a worldwide movement through costly sacrifices. Seeds for the modern worldwide movement were actually planted after World War I with the founding of the League of Nations and President Wilson’s emphasis on the importance of national sovereignty for all nations. For example, Ho Chi Minh was inspired by this vision as a young waiter in Paris and wanted to meet President Wilson when he came to Paris.
However, we know that this movement for freedom of the people of each nation did not always go well. Communism rode the wave of nationalism and gained influence and control by appearing to be a leader for freedom from foreign control, while actually imposing oppressive domination. Some nations never regained freedom from Communist control while others fell under the domination of corrupt dictators. Americans can be proud that our nation’s ideals inspired many new nations expressed particularly by Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
However, Americans have sometimes supported very non-democratic regimes mainly because they made a show of being anti-Communist while maintaining corrupt and autocratic governments. Their main attraction to wealthy Americans was that they gave assurances that American investments in their lands would be left alone. In other words, the governments would prevent workers from attempts to improve working conditions. We saw such right-wing governments in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Sadly, the impulse to make money overrode concern for “liberty and justice for all.”
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We want America to continue to be “the land of the free and home of the brave,” but it will only happen if our citizens make an effort to resist non-democratic influences that are in America and other lands. The sacrifices of Americans made in wartime must be followed by determination to put into practice our hard-won freedoms through advancing both our democracy and democracies in other lands. We have inherited the basic principles and methods of advancing “liberty and justice for all,” but we know from our history that these require constant protection from non-democratic impulses too evident in human nature. We see too many examples of them. The sacrifices of the past are best honored by preserving and improving the practice of our democracy. This requires freedom and bravery together with learning through experience how to build and preserve a democracy.
Rev. Robert L. Montgomery, Ph.D, lives in Black Mountain.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Observing Memorial Day: Remembering sacrifices of soldiers.
