The Meaning Of Memorial Day
Thoughts on an Often-Misunderstood Holiday And Weaponization Of That Misunderstanding
Someone wished me a Happy Memorial Day this weekend. It feels weird every year when I hear it.
Shouldn’t the greeting be “Solemn Memorial Day,” “Blessed Memorial Day,” or just “Happy Summer!” since it is the traditional start of summer? Is it really a “happy” holiday considering it honors people who met a violent, untimely death?
I was born on Memorial Day, so this holiday and the weekend around it always had a unique meaning. Our annual barbecue always doubled as a birthday party. In the second grade, my teacher, Ms. Wicks, asked us to pick a holiday to do an oral report on. Most of the class chose Christmas or Halloween, but I decided on Memorial Day, both because it was my birthday and because it was always the last holiday before summer and the end of the school year.
Memorial Day was first celebrated as a federal holiday to honor American soldiers who died in service in 1890. It was initially called Decoration Day and observed every year on May 301. It was moved to the last Monday in May 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War and officially renamed Memorial Day three years later. Since then, it has doubled as the unofficial start of the summer season, ending, unofficially, on Labor Day.
It was one of several holidays honoring soldiers, alongside Veterans Day on November 11, which celebrates all soldiers who served in a war, whether they died or returned home and are living or passed, and Armed Forces Day, which this year fell on May 17 and honors those currently serving.
Do most Americans know this, though? Probably not. In a scene from a 1998 episode of The Simpsons, Bart, playing the role of an overdramatic, attention-hungry human interest reporter for his student news show, does a segment on veterans sewing American flags out of old clothes. After the segment, he asked Lisa, the host, why there was no day to recognize our veterans.
“They have two,” she explained in frustration at Bart’s dishonest dramatics.
“Well, maybe they should have three,” he responds, unaware that there are three.
During the Biden presidency, I would regularly see right-wing influencers online echo Bart and complain about the lack of recognition for veterans alongside the existence of Pride Month, Juneteenth, or Indigenous Peoples’ Day, all of which became more front and center in the “woke” era. These influencers would do social media posts and podcast segments complaining about the similar lack of a month or a day to honor those who “paid the ultimate price” - a reference to the over 700,000 men and women who died fighting for the United States in wars we’ve fought since 1776.
Of course we do. It’s today.
Most Americans innocently chalk up Memorial Day to being a day to honor all service members. I think because of this, the argument that we don’t have a solemn day or month or remembrance for those who died fighting for American ideals gains traction, especially when pitted against one honoring a marginalized group and the appalling way we may have failed to live up to those ideals by how American society treated these groups.
I’ve always found the misunderstanding to be something quirky. There’s no harm done in putting out pictures of long-passed ancestors who fought in wars, even though they didn’t die in battle and went on to live long, happy lives. The only reason my cousins and I were able to go into a Birkenstock store in Cologne, Germany, in 2014 and do some shopping or do an Escape Room in Amsterdam is because of people like my grandfathers who fought and helped defeat Nazi Germany. It’s fine to celebrate them any day of the year you want to, even Memorial Day. Jumping in with a “but, actually, today is for…” feels like just being an annoying know-it-all ruining a wholesome occasion.
Most Americans innocently chalk up Memorial Day to being a day to honor all service members. I think because of this, the argument that we don’t have a solemn day or month or remembrance for those who died fighting for American ideals gains traction.
But this misunderstanding is something that has become weaponized by the right, against marginalized groups in recent years, in the “anti-woke” counterculture they have been engaging in.
Most Americans only want to remember the good and forget or move on from the bad. Honoring sacrifices made by soldiers is a “good” memory; not because they died, but because the causes they died for sustained.2 It doesn’t feel like an insult to America to honor fallen soldiers. It sometimes does to talk about our history of racism, sexism, or homophobia. It’s a past that people want to escape and forget about. What better way to get them all riled up about having to be reminded about slavery, Jim Crow, the genocide of Native Americans, or homophobia than to pit American heroes against them in some sick competition over who is being honored more? The same dynamic led your Boomer aunt to share a Facebook post of an elderly veteran with a caption lamenting that this photo won’t get as many likes as a Kim Kardashian photo.
I resisted the urge this weekend to “educate” people on this when they posted photos of their ancestors who fought in wars but came back, or when my family put out pictures of my grandfathers in uniform - both returned alive from the Second World War.3 On one hand, why ruin a good thing that makes them happy? On the other hand, do I let slide a misunderstanding that is among the many being weaponized in nefarious ways against the marginalized?
This year, I chose the former.
I hope you all have a great weekend and a great Summer. May we always live up to the sacrifices that the 700,000 Americans made. It’s necessary now, perhaps more than ever.
My birthday
At least up until now, let’s check back on this in a year or three.
Though my paternal grandfather, Francis Rafter, suffered permanent injuries after his ship blew up, supposedly in an accident in 1944. I remain steadfast in my belief it was torpedoed by a German submarine.