I am trying to remember my very first Memorial Day. I believe it was somewheres around 1925-6. Papa would get me dressed in my best “gawn to meeting clothes.” We’d catch the subway at 180th street in the Bronx for a trip down to Fifth Ave. to watch the Memorial Day Parade.
Papa liked parades. We were often on Fifth Avenue or Broadway watching a parade with papa’s running comment. (Wow! do I ever Remember that Lindbergh ticker tape.) On a number of those Memorial Day trips I actually saw the last Civil War Veterans being pushed in wheelchairs at the head of the parade. Papa said that war was between Feudalism with its Slavery and Capitalism with its wage slaves. “That Southern system was far to expensive for the capitalists. Why feed and house workers when you can just lay them off and not worry about them,” “Papa I said, would we be better off if we were slaves?” “Well that depends” he said. “ If we were lucky enough to have a nice owner maybe? But generally speaking no because we wouldn’t be free to take the subway and go to Coney Island or wherever we wanted.”
What I always found most heartbreaking in these parades were the wounded vets. Most without one limb or another. sometimes both. Yes, people watching would always give them a lot of applause. Papa would say, “look carefully that’s the price of war. The people who make them aren’t here. They are sitting in their fancy clubs up the street having a whiskey and a cigar. They just make the wars because it is a very profitable business. They don’t come near the front lines of battle.” Papa never missed an opportunity to educate about the Ruling Class.
So, here we are in 2011. I did see a bit of our local Memorial Day Parade. There were still quiet a few WW2 veterans but like the Civil War Vets back then their ranks are rapidly declining. The Vets I am very sad about are the ones who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. In some ways they are like the Vietnam veterans. With a very heavy heart I remember watching that belated parade for those very sad men who finally got their ticker tape shower up Broadway. Watching that sad,sad march I just knew in my guts it was a terrible waste and even more sadly they knew it too. Is the high rate of suicides amongst returning veterans just a symptom of the malaise that they suffer?
Because of improved armor and medical help in the field we have an increased number of wounded. 42,000 thousand from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many double and triple limb amputees. As the Fire Engines go by on Main Street’s part of our Memorial Day Parade I close me eyes and see these thousands of wounded men and women vets passing. They are asking why are we like this? What were we fighting for? I feel this great sense of shame for I have no answer.
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I feel Memorial Day should be a time of collective sadness and atonement for the horror of asking anyone to give their life for our failure to find peaceful solutions to our problems. The only Memorial Day observation I've attended that has hit the right note has been here on Madeline Island, where a small group of veterans gathers at the ferry dock for the playing of "Taps" and to cast a wreath onto the waters of Lake Superior in memory. The color guard is provided by veterans from the Red Cliff Indian Reservation. Much more somber, and appropriate, than a parade.
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