You might think that this article is a little late since it is published after Memorial Day. But now that Memorial Day has passed, it’s worth reflecting on what it represents and why the Memorial Day debate is so crucial. “Debate,” you might say. “What debate?
Yes, there is a debate. On the one hand, there are those who say that the purpose of Memorial Day is, or should be, to honor soldiers who fought or are fighting for our freedom. This is the view we hear a lot on and around Memorial Day. We hear it from presidents, governors, congressmen, mayors, military officers and military analysts. On the other hand, there are those who say that the purpose of Memorial Day is to mourn those who lost their lives in wars and think about ways to prevent this from happening again in the future. This is what we hear from anti-war activists and those more generally who are quite skeptical of the motivations and actions of governments.
I wish I didn’t have such a debate. And that’s why I waited. There are many people in the United States whose parents or friends have died or been injured in foreign wars. It must be difficult for them to hear or read armchair analysts like me talk about the “true meaning” of Memorial Day.
But the debate is important because, unfortunately, one of the primary ways most Americans get their history is from what is said on national holidays, particularly July 4, Memorial Day, Presidents’ Day, and Veterans’ Day. There is so much emotion in this era that various advocates can get away with historical misinformation masked by sentiment. I think that’s why they fight so hard to give meaning to Memorial Day: it’s a way to accomplish with sentiment what is much harder to accomplish with rational argument.
Exhibit A of the tendency to cloak arguments under sentiment is a recent essay for National review Online, “Mystical chords of memory”, by Mackubin editor Thomas Owens. “Mac” Owens, as he is known to friends and colleagues, is associate dean of academics and professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Before I get to my criticisms, I want to point out that I spent a weekend at a conference with him about two years ago, and I love and respect him. He is a serious scholar with an important point of view that he expresses well. But it is exactly this fact that makes his article disturbing.
This is from David R. Henderson, “The fight for Memorial Day“, antiwar.comMay 27, 2008.
On my Substack, I posted the entire my 2006 Memorial Day piece. This covers some of the same ground, but also delves deeper into Mac Owens’ argument.
