Memorial Day 2017.

Something new this year on social media is the admonition that Memorial Day is to honor the war dead, Veterans Day is to show appreciation for the living veterans and Armed Forces Day is to honor the service members presently serving; in addition, the memes tell us to try to keep it separate so that each of the groups have their well-deserved days of commemoration.

While I don’t see the fault in expressing my thanks to a veteran on Memorial Day, it goes to the heart of what I see as the problem within our society. The sentiments that we express to the fallen dead, veterans, and service members, are jumbled into one big sentiment. We don’t separate them in our minds. Which is a sign of intellectual sloth and it casts a shadow on the spoken sentiments emanating from our mouths. It means that we do not put significant forethought to the sentiments, i.e. we are mouthing the clichés without keeping those thoughts foremost in our minds as we say it.

We are used to saying things without meaning it, we toss off clichés like: Have a good day or good morning to one another without meaning it, which doesn’t hurt the recipient of the sentiment a bit. In this case, it translates to an insult to those we are supposedly honoring and it translates into actions which will ultimately hurt those we honor because our lack of thought demonstrates just how shallow we hold their contributions and service.

It is the kind of artificiality that our society seems to be mired in today. Giving tribute to those who have served seems to be a de rigeur exercise in rote expressions; it is no different than doing your chores. It is most galling coming from elected officials because they do so with an agenda: to appear patriotic as they wrap the flag more tightly around themselves. 

I believe that sincerity matters; that you need to mean what you say and say what you mean. Paying lip service to the trite and true is the overriding ethos in our society.

But what is a little insincerity amongst friends? Sadly, in this instance it manifests itself in ways that will hurt those who had serve and are serving now. It gives us an excuse to absolve us of our promised responsibility to those we verbally honor. It gives people, politicians and citizens alike an excuse for not doing more, for not meeting our responsibilities, for not realizing the promises made to the living and the dead.

I point to the way the VA health system has failed our veterans, I point to the number of veterans who are homeless and suffering from PTSD and will continue to suffer because we as a nation are too self-involved to help them deal with their problems. I point to the astronomical suicide rates of our veterans. I point to the ease with which our political leadership can send living service members into harm’s way without regard to the gravitas of the decision.

It is as if we believed that saying: “Thanks for your service” is all that is necessary to meet our civic obligations to the dead and the living:  It doesn’t. No matter how many times you say it, no matter how many flag festooned meme’s you post on your Facebook page, no matter how you profess your patriotism, none of it matters.

What matters is if we did something to keep our promises. What matters is if we opened up our pockets to enable us to meet our obligations. What matters is us going out into our local communities and discovering those little community programs which serves the veterans living in your community.

The only thing that matters is if we put ourselves on the line for them, just as they did for us.

Talk is cheap.