Memorial Day: A Solemn Day of Remembrance in the United States

This weekend marks Memorial Day, a solemn commemoration of those who lost their lives in the wars America has fought. It is not a day for celebration but a day for remembrance. All across the country, families visit cemeteries to honor loved ones who never came home. Flags are placed at graves, flowers are left, and tears are shed. It is a day of quiet reverence, heavy with meaning.

There is a novel I think about every year when this weekend arrives. It is All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, a German soldier who survived World War I. It is not a book about heroes or glory. From the very beginning, the author makes clear that it is about the brutality, horror, and hopelessness of war. Remarque shows us the truth and not the patriotic posters or the marching bands. He shows us the trenches, the hunger, the fear, and the endless death.

During World War I, soldiers on both sides lived and died in trenches. They fired their rifles and cannons at each other across a stretch of barren land known as "no man's land." Sometimes, soldiers would rush across it in massive, desperate assaults. And sometimes, like one haunting moment in 1914, they would stop fighting, even if just for a single night.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that year, a truce was called in many parts of the front. Soldiers emerged from their trenches and met one another between the lines. They shook hands, wished each other a Merry Christmas, and even sang songs together. The next day, the killing resumed. That story captures the insanity of war more clearly than any speech ever could.

For me, this weekend also brings back personal memories. My grandfather's youngest brother was named Sam. He volunteered for the American army before the United States officially entered World War I. In a twist of irony, his name was the same as the symbol that called Americans to serve: "Uncle Sam."

Uncle Sam posters were everywhere during both world wars, pointing directly at young men with the message: "I Want You for U.S. Army." But my Uncle Sam was not a symbol. He was real, flesh and blood, and he went off to fight in that terrible war.

He was wounded in battle and received a Purple Heart.

As a child growing up in the Bronx, I remember that Uncle Sam and his wife lived just a few blocks from us. Every Veterans Day, he would come by our apartment dressed in his uniform. Then he would walk to the Grand Concourse, the wide boulevard in the Bronx where the Veterans Day parade was held, and march proudly alongside other veterans.

Veterans Day and Memorial Day are often confused, but they are not the same. Veterans Day honors all who served in the military, whether they lived or died. Memorial Day is for remembering those who died. It is more somber. More sorrowful. And yet both days call us to remember. To remember the pain, the sacrifice, and the cost.

My Uncle Sam came home. So many others did not.

On this Memorial Day, I think not of glory but of silence. The silence of a soldier's grave. The silence after the Christmas songs faded in "no-man's-land." The silence left in families when the doorbell rings and a uniformed officer stands outside.

There is no glory in war...only silence.