The Modern Meaning of Memorial Day — 2025
Note: This was originally published in HuffPost in 2014. I have updated it for current circumstances. It is perhaps more important than ever — in this current political mire in which we find ourselves — that we remember what our men and women have fought and died for.
In the United States, while many will be setting up their grills, weather-permitting, and fixing barbeque, or gathering with friends and family at restaurants, or in whatever location, thankful for a long weekend and looking forward to the summer, numerous journalists — and politicians — will also be making commentary on what this day means. They will be talking about our soldiers, and whether one is for or against whatever war or military action in which we have been or are embroiled, they will be reminding us that those who have fought and died for us, our country, and our freedoms, should be foremost in our minds.
I agree with this wholeheartedly, for whether one is for whatever war or military intervention or against it, no one should take issue with our veterans themselves. I come from a long line of American veterans, from the French and Indian War and the American Revolution through to my father, who was a Korean War veteran, with my great-grandfather, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and WWI on the Western Front, buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
However, my father, and my great-grandfather, and every other veteran I remember today among the generations of my family — never mind the ones I knew and loved personally as friends — would be not just be deeply saddened, but also deeply angered by the lack of respect veterans have been given, including now in the second term of the President of the United States. This is also especially true among GOP members who are among his devotees — including, incredibly, those who have served. Instead, today, veterans and their families were offered lip service as well as highly political invective…as has been the case with citizens, pundits, and politicians alike, which makes for great theater and a visible “show” of patriotism.
These theatrical acts are damnable, hypocritical, and cheap solace when actions taken (or not taken for political expediency, claiming we should wait until the midterm elections in 2026) directly contradict the words directed at those who have served.
And it’s not just veterans who are mocked; so are those whom they have sworn to protect against all enemies foreign and domestic. Our very Constitution — which all soldiers, veterans, public officials, the judiciary, the President, and his cabinet have sworn to uphold — is being subverted if not eviscerated by the current administration and the technocratic forces serving it.
Freedom House, dedicated to analyzing global political rights and civil liberties released its 2024 assessment, and found that for the 19th consecutive year, freedom globally was on the decline. Further, we are now on the Human Rights Watchlist, embodying what in a former world report regarding growing authoritarianism, warned against in the “flouting the rule of law while maintaining a veneer of order, legitimacy, and prosperity.”
Why? The Supreme Court before Trump’s second presidency gave presidential immunity; also, with staunch belief in this immunity, Trump and his DOJ seem to be flaunting this supposed power by ignoring Federal court decisions, including in ICE capture and rendition of legal immigrants and asylum seekers to foreign countries — or arrest of both citizens and those here legally without due process as promised by the Fourteenth Amendment, consistently upheld by subsequent Supreme Court rulings not just for all citizens but for all “persons” within our borders. Adding to the insanity, for Americans born in the United States, now even US citizens are (mistakenly) being given instructions to self-deport.
But adding insult to injury as well as the difference between past and the present: the rapid advancement of the “technosphere.” Given the dismantling of the US government’s digital infrastructure by Elon Musk’s DOGE, and its recent partnering with Palantir, a current contractor for the Department of Defense and known for its surveillance capacity, as WIRED recently stated, rather starkly: “For DOGE, data is a tool. It’s also a weapon.” As WIRED reporter Brian Barrett continues, “What could that data be used for? Anything. Everything.”
In the hands of the Trump Administration, it seems anything goes; all one needs is the will and someone to create the appropriate lie. This while the federal government and its contractors seek to create what Musk calls a “master database” which can be used for any sort of “technical malfeasance.” The concern: a weaponization of information which can be used against people the administration dislikes. As WIRED reports, “The ultimate concern is a panopticon of a single federal database with everything that the government knows about every single person in this country”
We should be even more angry with time in being subjected now to fewer freedoms, including right to privacy, freedom of speech, and right to due process of law — all of which are fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, which as many seem to ignore, supersedes any administration’s Executive Orders.
What becomes true as things swing more and more to the extreme ends of the spectrum, is that the higher the stakes get, the more issues are seen by authoritarian forces as black and white, right and wrong, to the detriment of dissent. Our veterans have not just fought and died for our right to dissent — but to protect the U.S. Constitution — and those whom it serves. Not just those in power. Everyone within our borders.
Remember, from George Orwell’s novel, 1984, which I used to teach, those famous slogans:
“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.”
The Trump Administration seems to be using Project 2025 and its Christo-fascist playbook — Trump signing EOs handed to him even if he has no idea what he’s signing. Because — heaven forbid there be such a thing as freedom, for in 1984, “Big Brother” loves you, and only wants to protect you — not just from others, but from yourself.
For that protection, one must therefore believe that 2+2=5. And one must believe that with all his or her heart. And one must not question when the clock also strikes “13.”
For our veterans whom we remember, now memorialized by this day, they remembered something that we often don’t: that when the time comes, there are things worth fighting for. But now it cannot just be those wearing a uniform, beholden not to a presidential administration but to the Constitution — we as citizens and those who love this country — must take up the torch and hold it aloft, daring any malevolent party — those who do not believe in the freedom and rights of everyone –to take it from us.
So, as I eat my share of Memorial Day barbeque, I will be thinking about the following: my great-grandfather, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and WWI, buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and about my father, who was a veteran of Korea. As someone who wrote a book about WWI, I will be wearing a red poppy and reading both “In Flanders Fields” and Siegfried Sasson’s poem, “Aftermath.”
So, in honoring the American men and women on Memorial Day who served and are now remembered for their sacrifice, there are essential reasons to do so. To fight for our constitutional republic is not just patriotic. This is saying thank you to every single veteran who gave his and her life to make sure we would always be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
