The ever-present freedom that is so much a part of the everyday fabric of this great nation can be deceiving in its own way.
It can lull us, with some risk, into believing that freedom — in either its most-profound, or everyday-ordinary incarnations — comes without a real, ongoing and sobering cost. Instead, we can come to think that our way of life is really the normal state of human affairs.
The truth stands a very far piece away from that simplistic and dangerous notion.
Anyone who’s ever worn a uniform of this great nation — and survived to tell of their experiences — can disabuse us of such ideas if we’re willing and aware enough to pay attention. And, if no living veterans are handy, independently thinking for even a few moments about the real reasons for Memorial Day can accomplish much the same thing.
For freedom is purchased and maintained with a price not ever fully paid. Not in this perpetually troubled world. And not when the bills coming due are measured in human suffering and lives lost on battlefields both far away — and, at times, even on our own American soil.
That realization should make a few moments of reflection this Memorial Day weekend a very tiny sacrifice to offer for our Constitution and the rights we enjoy under it. These privileges we enjoy, believe it or not, transcend political party affiliation, zip code and state boundaries.
Consider that we vote — or, at least, we should — for our representatives. We are then free to publicly criticize them pointedly or even obscenely when we believe they fall short. Such are far from universal rights around the world. Yet we routinely exercise them — and other powerful freedoms — almost without consciously thinking about the profound grace they grant us all. Or the cost paid in human lives to both gain and maintain them.
In this matter, it can be worthwhile to turn President John F. Kennedy’s famous statement on its head, leaving us with the thought that to whom much is given, precious little is really expected of most of us. Those who’ve died in service to America have measured up to the requirement explained in Kennedy’s original thought. It’s eloquently laid out in the New Testament Book of Luke as well: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” Those who’ve died in service to America have more than paid this cost of our freedom.
Seen that way, it is good and appropriate to pause this holiday weekend to recognize, remember and even mourn the soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, coast guardsmen and others who’ve given us the gift of their sacrificed lives while in service to this country.
That should be easier to remember this year because this month saw the opening of the National September 11 Memorial Museum. It commemorates the 2001 terrorist attacks that brought home to American civilians in a shock-and-awe way the dangers of our modern world.
We absorbed and reacted to that lesson much as a previous generation did with their own version of 9/11 — the attack on Pearl Harbor that flung the U.S. into a long and bloody conflict.
Our freedom emerged the victor when that war was finally done. We believe that will be the case too with our current, still-ongoing conflict a world away. Although the Iraq war is over, Americans in uniform are still engaged in war in Afghanistan. Approximately 600 of Georgia’s citizen-soldiers are presently deployed overseas as part of ongoing combat operations. More are set to head to Afghanistan shortly in what the Georgia National Guard says may be the final large-scale deployment as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The risks they face are every bit as real as those stared down by their predecessors in uniform. Many who’ve similarly marched off to confront our foes perished as a result. Their selflessness and sacrifice is worth remembering this weekend and for all days to come.
