This Just In – In the wake of the Civil War, which delivered unto us a massive level of national grief and loss, Memorial Day began as Decoration Day. At the first official Decoration Day event in 1868 at Arlington Cemetery, former general (and future president) James Garfield said:
“Thousands of soldiers are today turning aside in the march of life to visit the silent encampments of dead comrades who once fought by their side. From many thousand homes, whose light was put out when a soldier fell, there go forth today to join these solemn processions loving kindred and friends, from whose heart the shadow of grief will never be lifted till the light of the eternal world dawns upon them.”
Thankfully, our nation’s military is not actively engaged in a war zone right now. Our soldiers stationed overseas are not dug into a bunker, hiding, hoping to take out a sniper’s nest. They’re not charging toward danger and gunfire to secure a village.
Our well-armed, best-trained, world-renowned military is not doing that, but our unarmed schoolchildren are expected to.
Last year, the US military (all branches) lost just over 100 active-duty soldiers. About a third of them died from “non-hostile” causes (accidents or natural causes).
In that same year, more than 6,000 American children have died from gunshot wounds.
It’s been a year since the slaughter in Uvalde, Texas. Since that horrific event, little has happened on the legislative front to make Americans in general or Texans in particular any safer. What a stunning indictment.
The silent encampments of fallen children scattered across America’s cemeteries have only grown and our elected representatives drift further and further from public sentiment on this topic. Americans –in overwhelming numbers – want gun safety legislation to be passed.
We live in a world now where the Miami-Dade School district will ban the poem read at a presidential inauguration because of the objection of ONE parent.
As I search on my computer for statistics on military deaths, a Memorial Day Sale ad pops up on my screen. Our national algorithm is broken.
Petulant politicians, stubbornly refusing to act, remind us (unintentionally) that the answer will only be found within us. Block by block, school by school, ballot by ballot … while we still have ballots.
The vacuum of political leadership in this area is stunning. This is an issue that transcends ideology and can bring people of every possible background together, yet so-called leaders on one side of the aisle dismiss it. They fear such a coalition. Their cowardice is vicious.
In the battlefield of American culture, it is our children who are taking gunfire, suffering fatalities while defenseless and crying out for support from all the adults around them.
This Memorial Day, place the American flags on the thousands of gravesites of children who have died from this broken algorithm that redirects our attention so easily to cookouts and picnics and parades that do nothing to commemorate the soldiers lost in the last year in the cause of American freedom.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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