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| Remembrance at our Summit Cemetery |
The peacefulness of Memorial Day weekend is fully upon us. Family members attend to graves at the cemetery. Usually I'll find a couple spots of bird excrement on our black bench monument. It's a must to get this precious spot tidied up for Memorial Day. You'll see a flag there recognizing my late father who was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. He was so fortunate to survive the war in the hellish Pacific theater.
All of that war was hell of course. "War is hell," as stated by General Sherman in the post-Civil War years. It's actually a paraphrase. The people who utter famous quotes are not thinking of Bartlett's at the time. They say something in their normal train of thoughts, then years later it gains a life of its own.
"There stands Jackson like a stone wall." The statement might not have been made in an exclamatory way. Could it have been made up? The quote came from the losing side in the U.S. Civil War. The "myth of the lost cause" caused a fair amount of embellishing post-war.
"There stands Jackson like a stone wall." The statement might not have been made in an exclamatory way. Could it have been made up? The quote came from the losing side in the U.S. Civil War. The "myth of the lost cause" caused a fair amount of embellishing post-war.
People did not focus on the record of the Civil War in the immediate post-war years. So many families had experienced devastating tragedy, it's easy to see why. Nostalgia for any time period or event takes a few years to take hold. Remember the "back to the '50s" phenomenon of the early '70s with Sha-Na-Na and others? The movie "American Graffiti?" Doo-wop was a musical style worth remembering.
A major newspaper or magazine ran articles about the Civil War that elevated remembrance. Time passes and people start feeling some emotional distance from the war. Odd that any war could promote nostalgia. Nostalgia suggests some yearning for the elements of what we're remembering. We think of WWII and associate with the music of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Such music is fondly remembered.
World War II is often called "the good war," a term that ought to make us wince. The expression may have started as a way of suggesting that the Vietnam war was on the other end of the scale. War is good in the sense that it extinguishes an evil enemy.
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| Our Morris MN cemetery at twilight (B.W. photo) |
Why did so much conflict come to a head in the mid-20th Century? One impulsive thought: men dominated power positions around the world. Women surely would have backed off from such terrible conflict. Women are nurturers by their nature.
There's a scene in the great movie about Douglas MacArthur where the heroic character talked about the means for reconstructing Japan. Frankly he cited some political concepts that would be described (or derided) by many today as "liberal." I was struck by the scene in which Gregory Peck talked about letting women have the vote and building up trade unions. Make love, not war.
And what direction is our United States headed in now? So hard to understand how ignorance is flourishing to create a new right wing in America. Could my generation of the boomers possibly have foreseen this when we were young? We were once kids admiring JFK and the Peace Corps. We admired elements of the LBJ presidency although Vietnam was not to be forgiven, ever.
Could we ever have believed that an entertainer given to crazy hyperbole and paranoia would dominate our political discourse and foment such conflict?
Defying credulity
Could we have envisioned anything like January 6? And further, could we envision one whole political party, the GOP, wanting to discourage an investigation into it? Can you believe that so many Americans continue to eat out of the hand of Donald Trump? Can you believe that they engage this enthusiasm with their Christian religious beliefs? It is a significant and ominous element in our USA now.
Lindsay Graham says there is no future for the GOP without Trump. As if the lot of political conservatives rises or falls with the one man, a demagogue, named Trump. Can't you all see the absurdity of this? No one in the GOP can articulate a winning message, a message based on ideas, outside of the bombastic Mr. Trump? He's the end-all of your hopes and dreams? Wasn't there a political leader like this in Germany once? Can't our American education system produce citizens capable of more measured, reasoned thought? If not, what is its purpose?
Is Trump's vision for America the kind of thing that would be worth going to war over? And if we did go to war, would it be in the American spirit of defending all that is good? Or would it be to prop up something else? The German leader certainly commanded loyalty. Trump expanded the military bureaucracy to include "space force." What kind of violence might result from such an asset - would it be to truly promote good? Under Trump? Can we rule out the possibility of Trump taking action to overtly promote the white race?
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| Sam Smith statue at Summit Cemetery |
Matt Gaetz now talks about "Second Amendment solutions." Yes, a hint toward guns and violence. Many of us are waiting for all of this to flame out, as if surely it must.
Memorial Day weekend is the time to remember when U.S. forces were needed to liberate the world. Oh, the Russians helped, quite a bit actually. And the British. Vietnam was a nightmare. We can even remember the U.S. Civil War if we go to our Summit Cemetery in Morris and observe the "running rifleman" statue of Sam Smith.
Memorial Day weekend is so tranquil. Use it as a sedative if you're the type to have any positive thoughts about Trump's GOP!
I remember Darlene Olen talking about how "freedom isn't free!" I remember walking back to the Sun Tribune office after covering the outdoor Memorial Day service - the most peaceful feeling I could embrace during my career.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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