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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > May > 30
Monday, May 30, 2011
Editorial: Nature of this day shaped by size of wars
When Memorial Day was started after the Civil War, the idea was to forget about the political disputes in war and to focus on the men who died in combat. The individuals.
In modern times, that would men such as these:
• Adam Robert “A.J.” Johnson, a Northmont High School grad who always wanted to be a soldier, enlisted without telling his parents and died six years ago on patrol in Iraq.
• Adam Jones, a Marine, died in Afghanistan a few days before the death of Osama bin Laden. In his last post on Facebook, the Valley View High School grad asked God to take him if one of his men had to go.
• Donald R. Mickler Jr. was shot to death by a Afghan security guard. The Trotwood High School grad and member of a military family leaves a 3-year-old son.
• David Christoff Jr., who grew up near Springfield, was killed by a roadside bomb in 2006 in Iraq while on foot patrol. The Shawnee High School grad enlisted soon after 9/11 and had received a Purple Heart.
• David J. Luff Jr., a graduate of Hamilton High School, last fall became the fifth soldier from Hamilton to die since the beginning of the Iraq war. He was providing security for military leaders who were meeting Iraqi community leaders. His son had been born when he was home last May.
The list of local fatalities in the current American wars goes on and on. Scores of them.
And they surely are not forgotten. True, the attention paid to specific individuals fades with time, as it does for individuals in all walks of life and all forms of death.
But, for example, in Fairborn last fall, hundreds turned out to pay respects to Jesse Snow, a recent fatality in Afghanistan.
The society simply insists on respect for those who wear the uniform and goes out of its way to demonstrate that respect. Not content with a day set aside for those who have fallen, it has another for those who have survived, Veterans Day. Then there are the physical memorial sites.
Still, the truth is that Memorial Day does not capture the attention of most people as a day to do anything in particular. The society’s formal customs notwithstanding, more people get caught up in the informal ones, whether shopping, traveling or otherwise luxuriating in a day off.
Some people are appalled by this, seeing a failure to honor those who fought with the nation’s freedoms at heart.
However, just as founders of the holiday intended, the holiday is about the individual. And we don’t have as many individuals to mourn as we’ve had at other times, and not nearly as many as other nations have had.
Numerous as American wars are, this country has been fortunate. We did not lose the millions of people that others lost in the world wars.
We have not had war on our territory in the modern era, have not had cities leveled or society thrown into turmoil. It’s only natural that our memorial efforts aren’t as intense as those in some times and places.
But as we do remember the fallen, in whatever degree of attention we muster as individuals, it is well to remember that there aren’t more of them, that those who have fallen recently have paid a rare price as the rest of us have lived pretty much as usual.
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