Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Parades: They're Not Just For Candy Anymore

Memorial Day. We always said memorial day weekend. It was always about the weekend. Yooo hooo! Three day weekend! Three day weekend! Three day weekend! The holiday was always just a day off. An extra day to play, to escape. Memorial Day. I never even thought about the what or the why. Honoring the dead soldiers. The dead soldiers. The dead soldiers.

It doesn't matter how we feel about the war, it has nothing to do with the people who come back, and the people who don't.

Memorial Day is for the people who don't come back.

It didn't fully register in my frame of consciousness until this one. When some people convinced themselves that because of 9/11 we had to go mess with Iraq and Afghanistan. Can't have the rest of the world thinking we're all a bunch of pussies over here if we get hit and just lie there and take it.

Memorial Day is for the soldiers who didn't come back.

I have to keep saying it/writing it—the soldiers who didn't come back—it's the tape loop in my brain all day. Their families will never be the same without them. Mothers fathers, daughters and sons. In families who have always served they might be more slightly more prepared. But it doesn't ache any less. The hole they leave isn't smaller.

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