Memorial Year
Island Dweller condemns us all to a fiery future with today’s letter, which arrived yesterday but we were too busy being busy:
Your majesty:
Today is (legally) Memorial Day. I have not as yet seen any postings on your site referencing this fact. Please ask everyone who stops by the notice board outside the castle to take a few moments to remember those who never came back, those who were brought back, and those whose minds and spirits were afflicted by what they were forced by circumstance to do, and, consequently, never really left the battlefield either. Also, their families need not slip our minds. We salute them all.
ID
Well, we were all over the Twitter about it, but not everyone reads Twitter. One supposes they could then turn to any of the six-hundred websites that were all basically saying what you said.
Generally, if the Gormogons are going to address a holiday, we are going to say or do something different. And indeed, we are choosing the latter: instead of posting a bit of guilt-inducement on Memorial Day, we are posting the day after Memorial Day to remind everyone to be thankful to our fall for the other 364 years.
You know, the Czar might be onto something here. Does it seem that people take a very sanctimonious tone on Memorial Day? Basically every message comes down to this: “while you are out at your picnics and barbecues and pool parties having a great day off work and school, why not take a couple of seconds and thank the people who made this all possible?”
This is in a nation where soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen can’t pay for their own dinners or bar tabs because so many people want to pick up their checks. Want to see a soldier given a free ride? Put him on the edge of the road in uniform for about 90 seconds. Want to see a marine get his seat upgraded? Put him on a commercial airline. Want to see a sailor thanked by 40,000 people at once? Put her on the Jumbotron at a sports game. Want to see an airman feted at a backyard barbecue? Mention to a neighbor he has no place to go this weekend.
This is a country that by and large sends thousands of tons of care packages to the troops, organizes school kids to send cards and letters, and sees volunteers donating time and money to military charities. Enlistment in the services has never been higher and some branches are turning down recruits.
It isn’t that we need to be reminded that Memorial Day is special: our country sure gets it and makes every day Memorial Day. The Czar even wonders if the Memorial Day Reminder of Guilt comes from the post-Boomer/Gen Xers as a token potshot at the Boomers who generally don’t give a crap about anything but themselves. You know, a reflex action to all the crap they get to hear from the Boomers about Earth Day and Labor Day. Some holidays are worth celebrating, hippies. That sort of thing? What think ye?
(Post script: you know who does? Borepatch celebrates Memorial Day all year round with shout outs to our veterans and our fallen.)
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.