Memorial Day

To remember the fallen, there's a lot we have to forget.

Photo by Chris Hardy on Unsplash

Dear readers,

I’ve been thinking of what to write about the mass murder of children in Uvalde, Texas, and coming up blank. What is there to say about a country that repeatedly sacrifices its children to the god of gun fetishism? What is there to say about the armed and trained adults paid to serve and protect who only refused service and only protected themselves, who simply dilly-dallied in the hallway because they were scared of being shot, while children armed with nothing more than the macabre theater of active shooter drills were trapped in a classroom with a sadistic gunman?

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day when we pay our collective respects to those who served in our country’s armed forces and died doing it. Many countries have a day like this one, to recognize the people who risked their lives for a place, and who died for an idea of what that place stands for. The idea of America that soldiers sacrifice for is an America of free men and women; an America of peaceful coexistence; an America of liberal democracy, individual liberty, and equality of opportunity. They died, the American narrative goes, so that the rest of us can live in freedom and live in peace.

Every year, more American children than soldiers are killed by guns. Every year, more American children than on-duty police officers are killed by guns.

Are we living freely and peacefully?

In most other developed, wealthy nations, dying by gunfire is something reserved for soldiers; among civilians, including police officers, it’s nearly unheard of. In some of the countries that make up the ranks of less wealthy and less powerful world, dying by gunfire is something reserved for soldiers and for innocent civilians who wake up to find war at their doorstop, the unlucky consequence of being born in a place where more powerful people have decided your life is disposable. In a few nations, dying by gunfire is the dark norm of rampant gang violence, and the outcome of heavily corrupt, near-failed states that cannot control it, but hope to confine it.

In the US, dying by gunfire is a risk of everyday life: Of going to the grocery store, of getting into an argument at a traffic light, of sending your kid to school. This violence didn’t come to us from some complex and incomprehensible outside force beyond our control; it is not the outcome of a weak government unable to rein it in. It is a violence that our elected leaders choose, that many of our fellow citizens vote for. We are truly exceptional in our choice to continue living like this.

And when we object — and so many of us object — conservative leaders simply say “arm yourself, too.”

Anyone who has gone to war (and most of us who haven’t) can tell you what’s safer: A place where everyone is armed, or a place where no one is.

We memorialize the soldiers who take up arms to defend an ideal because we believe in the ideal, and because we understand (or tell ourselves) that what they are doing is brave, and because we believe the ideal should be defended. I have my own issues with and questions about this whole setup, but those are for another day; for now, let’s leave it at this: For most Americans, this is what Memorial Day is about: Thanking our troops, recognizing their courage, paying our respects to the fallen.

To remember the fallen as sacrificing for peace and freedom, there is a lot we have to forget.

We should pay our respects to those who served and gave their lives. But today we should also ask: Are we living out at home what we claim to be defending abroad?

Are we free?

Are we safe?

Why are we asking our fourth graders to be as brave as our soldiers, to stare down guns and to live in a nation where firearms are plentiful and easily accessible, to practice military-style drills where they learn how to hide and barricade themselves from the shooters that have become fixtures in American schools?

What kind of sick society asks this of its children?

What kind of safe and free place allows its children to be torn to bits by bullets?

“Wherever the stars and stripes fly at our schools, our churches, town halls, firehouses, and national monuments, it is made possibly because there are extraordinary Americans who are willing to brave death so that we can live in freedom and live in peace,” Donald Trump told an audience at Fort McHenry on Memorial Day in 2020.

The stars and stripes flew at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. I would bet that students there stood up each morning, put their hands over their hearts, and pledged allegiance to the flag. Are they living in freedom and peace?

Nineteen of those children, plus two adults, are not living at all.

There are extraordinary Americans who are willing to brave death so that we can live in freedom and live in peace.

There are. But are we?

xx Jill