Memorial Day is a sad holiday. A solemn one. All those people dead. Dead Because Of War. That's an occasion for solemnity. They made the sacrifice that we didn't make - how does that make us feel? Grateful, I should hope. But probably also, just a little bit conflicted.
After all, those people are dead. Dead! Dead! Dead! And we go on living. They're shot, stabbed, blown to pieces, gassed, torn by shrapnel, crushed under by engines of war, and meanwhile we're like "man, I stormed the beach on Memorial Day - I got such a bad sunburn, it was an atrocity."
Our priorities are pretty screwed up, if that's our attitude.
Memorial Day is a day to look at all the horrors of war and the costs they levy upon us all, just as a humanity. A lot of peace activists would look at all those horrors and costs and say, "Hey! We have a point." A point about how bad war is, perhaps...and how peace could be used as a substitute.
But then your "war hawks" as they style themselves, those baying hounds of bristling military puissance, those advocates of peace through war by means of might, they will look at it and respond saying: "Hey. You need war to stop that other guy, because he's all over the place. He's really crossing the line. Peace won't make him stop, so war it is."
They have a point too.
Yet on Memorial Day, even these two implacable enemies can stand together on the green grass of innumerable backyard cookouts and enjoy a burger, a dog (or indeed, a burg-dog), a beer - or I guess some tofu item in place of the burger/dog option if the peace guy's serious about his convictions - and they can honor the fallen in whatever way seems most appropriate to them, like talking about hockey playoffs.
