“Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it. It flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it.”
The first time I saw that quote was in the late Vince Flynn’s thriller novel, “Memorial Day.”
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On Memorial Day 2024, I began to fully appreciate what it that meant.
I’ve been to the pancake breakfasts and stood in awe amid the rows of graves in Normandy as taps played. I’ve scraped some sand from Omaha Beach. That sand is now reposed in honor next to the collection of challenge coins in our home.
I know some of the battles. I’ve met a fair number of vets. When I speak before groups, I ask the veterans to stand and be acknowledged before starting my talk. A veteran friend taught me to do that.
Still, Americans are conflicted about Memorial Day. They can never remember if it’s a day to remember all the dead in the cemeteries or just veterans, or if it’s Veterans Day. For most of my life, the cemeteries of America were filled with flags on Memorial Day, because so many had served.
In World War II, 33% of American men served. Some 16 million men and 350,000 women joined the active war effort.
Today, with a volunteer military, 0.05% of Americans serve in uniform. To an extent, this reflects of the kind of war fighting we do these days. Under a Donald Trump presidency, occupation forces are less necessary and tactical special forces more necessary. The Navy needs to be plussed up to match the Chinese, who operate more ships, thanks to stealing our intellectual property and technology secrets.
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Columnist and author Ann Coulter recently said that our military is a jobs program with special forces attached who do all the fighting. There’s a lot of truth there.
Now, under the Trump administration and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the emphasis of our fighting forces is “restoring the warrior ethos,” rebuilding the military, and reestablishing deterrence. Hegseth says he will achieve that by emphasizing lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness.
Vince Flynn wrote in “Memorial Day”: “Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.”
This is true. We take for granted those who have given their lives for the idea of American freedom.
Unless you’re at a veterans’ cemetery, those flags commemorating our veterans on this Memorial Day will, I fear, become less meaningful for many Americans.
I thought they would for me as well, especially after the completely abhorrent way in which we left Afghanistan.
And then came Memorial Day 2024. My husband got word that the nearby cemetery, whose Memorial Day services I’d attended in the past, was looking for help deploying the flags. We were all in. He helped with the prep work, and then we both came the day before the ceremonies to place the flags.
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We worked in teams. There were vets, Boy Scouts, bored teens, old fogies, and the clueless. Not one person complained.
I worked with a kid who was going into the Navy. For every flag placed, we’d read the name, note in which branch they served, and in what war they’d fought and died. She and I said a prayer and moved on to the next flag.
A thing like that will change a person.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” — Vince Flynn.
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