SUNDAY ISSUE: MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY
SUNDAY ISSUE: MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY

Opinion: Remembering selfless sacrifice, service

By Andre Jackson
Updated May 25, 2018

Another Memorial Day holiday weekend is in our midst now. It is a time for, yes, relaxation, fun or even plain old rest. As a people, Americans work more than hard enough to claim all of that.

Our desire for recreation should not overshadow the true reason for the holiday — to remember and honor the long, continuing caravan of Americans who have died in military service to keep this nation free. Their honorable, ultimate sacrifice is worth all of us taking some time this weekend and beyond to remember those who’ve died in service to liberty.

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson made this observation in his Memorial Day Prayer for Peace to a nation immersed in the Vietnam War: “On this Memorial Day, we who remain free by the sacrifice of the dead and the service of the living will requite our debt to both with thoughts and acts of gratitude and love.

And we will gain renewed inspiration from their sacrifice — to push forward with the task of trying to bring about a just and enduring peace by every reasonable means.”

That was sound advice then. It remains so today in the troubled world we occupy now.

About the Author

Andre Jackson is editorial editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in April 2009. He oversees the newspaper’s thought leadership expressed via its opinion pages.

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