Memorial Day matters more than ever

With fewer Americans choosing to serve in the military and social divisions deepening, Memorial Day is a desperately needed reminder of two truths: first, even with all her flaws, America is worth defending. Second, those who gave their lives to protect America model the selflessness and courage we need now to “bind up the nation’s wounds,” in Lincoln’s immortal language. Given the gathering gloom of international security challenges, that ethos will be more essential than ever before in the time ahead.

For most of human history, freedom – classically understood as the ability to choose the good – has not been the default setting. Kings, rulers, tyrants, and warlords made right by might. By contrast, in the bare bones of its Constitution, the United States of America approximated the best opportunity for people not already powerful to also choose the good – farmers, shop owners, craftsmen, laborers, and others. (This is why those enlisting in America’s armed forces swear their oath to the Constitution, not to the president, Congress, or any commanding officer.)

This freedom to choose the good is also the freedom to choose evil. America has never been perfect, and our country carries many scars from past sins. But there's a truth about scars: only living things have them. They show that past wounds could not bring the end, that healing and restoration of life were possible. That is because there were selfless Americans willing to lay down their lives so that work could continue.

For nearly 250 years people have chosen to swear that oath and risk their lives to keep America safe so others could make America better – freer in the classical sense. We owe it to them to ensure the “continued survival and success of liberty” in our time. But how?

We can look to the example of unity we see in the fallen. They teach us that selfless people can be found in every corner of America. But as much as they celebrate the particularities of their hometowns – in accents, mannerisms, political attitudes, sports affiliations, you name it?– by their actions they also contradict an unrestrained tribalism. They embody a unity that allows for unique differences in service of a common good. They show us America most fully herself. Like tiles in a mosaic, each is distinct yet also a vital piece of a bigger, more brilliant picture.

This is the spirit that enabled thirteen cantankerous colonies to form one country unlike any other in human history. This is the spirit that allows a unit of people drawn from wildly different backgrounds to drive together towards one objective, often against great odds, often amid terrible tragedy. And this is the spirit we must strive to nurture, protect, and grow among our fellow 332 million Americans today.

The courageous willingness to sacrifice everything for the good of complete strangers is the most vital national resource we have. But rising recruiting challenges for the military, especially the Army, suggest this resource, though renewable, is currently in short supply.

Army Chief of Staff General James McConville recently observed his service is “in a war for talent” with the private sector, with the Army offering bonuses up to $50,000 for recruits in some high-tech fields. He’s right, and those incentives are good, but competing with the private sector in benefits is not a fight the Army is well-positioned to win even in the best of times – and less so in its current tight budget environment.

More fundamentally, few are willing to risk their life for an enlistment bonus. More will risk it to protect their loved ones, to allow their homeland simply to be so that it might have a chance to be better. This is a profoundly deep motivation, and one that I explore in my novel, Last Summer Boys. It is so powerful because it is rooted in love: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

In the end, Memorial Day is not about anyone reading these words now. But it is the last gift to us from those who already gave everything. It is our opportunity for gratitude and our sacred duty, as Lincoln knew at Gettysburg: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”?

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