‘When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today’ – Enshrined on the Kohima war memorial in Nagaland, built to commemorate soldiers of the British Empire who laid down their lives to repel a Japanese assault in 1944 during World War-II.

On Memorial Day, part of the country will simply take another day off to enjoy time with family & friends. The other part will take a brief moment to think about those who died, and then go about taking the day off with family & friends. But few will truly stop and ask themselves what those who sacrificed gave up, and whether what this country has become is what they truly died for. Nor will they likely give much thought as to why it is that this country doesn’t really seem to give anything more than lip service at best to Memorial Day.

Imagine the life of a hypothetical 20 year old who was killed at Normandy in 1944. What might his short life have been like, and what would he have seen? Being born in 1925, he would have just become aware of the world around him as the stock market was crashing 1929. There is a decent chance that he would have probably grown up in a smaller town, away from big cities. He would have experienced the Depression personally, either as his immediate family struggled, or as extended family/friends struggled. Good economic times would merely have been something that heard existed before he was born. He would have heard the call to enlist as WWII became a truly national project for the entire population, with basic goods being rationed. He would have seen that roughly 1/3 of those who tried to enlist were rejected as being unfit for military service. He likely would have left the love of his life behind, with promises that they would start a family when he returned; promises that would never be fulfilled. He experienced the terror of combat, felt the pain as a bullet tore him apart. And then he died. He never knew what marriage was. He never saw his kids grow up. He never grew old with a very special person. He never saw his grandkids. He never experienced television. He never experienced the massive increases in living standards that occurred from 1950-2000 (he might never have even experienced indoor plumbing until he went in the Army). He never experienced life. This is what he gave up.

And what are we today as a country? If our hypothetical 20 year old, who would now be 90, could see us today, would he be happy? Or would he feel that he had died for nothing. Would he like that only half the country sacrifices to federal income taxes, while the other half receives tax benefits? Would he like the fact that there are so many regulations that a person who wants to cut hair for a living needs permission? Would he think that we had advanced socially when a large segment of our youth (many of whom are older than he was when he died), are little more than narcissistic spoiled brats who think that the world should conform to them? Would he think that sending the IRS to harass people for political views was a good thing? How about that average taxpayers are left bailing out big financial institutions, some of whose employees made (and continue to make, thanks to the bail out), more in salary and bonus in 2 or 3 years than those average taxpayers will see in their entire lifetimes? Would he like the universities today where many of the political views of the taxpayers aren’t represented? Would he think it a good thing that college graduates, far from being able to rationally consider different points of view as those in his day were, lack basic critical thinking skills and are content to demonize their political opponents as basically being Nazi’s, something that he fought against. Would he think that these people are even intellectually serious? Would he worry that a segment of our political elite think that it is acceptable to force people to violate their consciences as a condition of employment? How about that the NSA listens scoops up phone records and listens into private conversations without anything remotely approaching adequate safeguards? In short, would he ask himself whether his sacrifice was even worth it?

And would he feel appreciated on Memorial Day; a holiday that often gets only lip-service from the population?  Would he feel understood by a population in which very few have ever served in the military or even know someone who has? How about what sacrifices his own family made? As civilians, we were not called upon to curtail our consumption or accept rationing, as the WWII generation was. We have a generation reaching adulthood which never really knew that generation, nor heard the experiences first-hand. Today, “grandpa’s war” was Vietnam, and most of the population didn’t experience that at all. And our war in Afghanistan & Iraq? Short of that one horrible day in September when we really did experience war on mainland America of a sort not seen since the Civil War, we haven’t really had to experience it (No, taking our shoes off in airport security lines doesn’t count). If we don’t watch the news, we don’t even have to hear about it. It hasn’t dominated our conversation. Our mothers don’t ask their friends if they have heard from John at the battlefront recently. Unlike the generation of which our hypothetical 20 year old came from, war isn’t real to us or our families (thankfully). And because it isn’t real, we don’t really appreciate the sacrifices made. The 20 year old who died in 1944 likely wouldn’t feel understood and appreciated today. And because of that, it is hard to make the case that we are truly keeping faith with those who died.