A MEMORIAL DAY WORTH REMEMBERING
by Andy Rooney
Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we have set aside to honor by
remembering all the Americans who have died fighting for the thing we
like the most about our America: the freedom we have to live as we
please.
No official day to remember is adequate for something like that.
It's too formal. It gets to be just another day on the calendar.
No one would know from Memorial Day that Richie M., who was shot
through the forehead coming onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, wore
different color socks on each foot because he thought it brought him
good luck.
No one would remember on Memorial Day that Eddie G. had promised
to marry Julie W. the day after he got home from the war, but didn't
marry Julie because he never came home from the war. Eddie was shot
dead on an un-American desert island, Iwo Jima.
For too many Americans, Memorial Day has become just another day
off. There's only so much time any of us can spend remembering those
we loved who have died, but the men, boys really, who died in our
wars deserve at least a few moments of reflection during which we
consider what they did for us.
They died.
We use the phrase "gave their lives," but they didn't give their
lives. Their lives were taken from them.
There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong
that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble
activity -- war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.
Because I was in the Army during World War II, I have more to
remember on Memorial Day than most of you. I had good friends who
were killed.
Charley Wood wrote poetry in high school. He was killed when
his Piper Cub was shot down while he was flying as a spotter for the
artillery.
Bob O'Connor went down in flames in his B17.
Obie Slingerland and I were best friends and co-captains of our
high school football team. Obie was killed on the deck of the
Saratoga when a bomb that hadn't dropped exploded as he landed.
I won't think of them anymore tomorrow, Memorial Day, than I
think of them any other day of my life. Remembering doesn't do the
remembered any good, of course. It's for ourselves, the living.
I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of
those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of
the young people who are going to die in the future if we don't find
some new way that takes war out of our lives.
That would be a Memorial Day worth celebrating.
-- Andy Rooney
c. 2005, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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