Memorial Day sales events have made the holiday a three-day shopping spree that serves as the opening shot of summer. But when it comes to fallen soldiers and their grieving families and friends, all that shopping can add insult to injury.
Having grown up in Israel, the Memorial Day I was familiar with started with a national moment of silence, when everything came to a complete standstill. Even drivers on the highway stopped their cars and came out to stand in solemn honor of fallen soldiers.
It's not surprising, then, that to my ear there is something grating in the combination of these three words: Memorial Day Sale. I feel that we, as a society, should pause and consider this question: Is the widespread commercialization of Memorial Day a harmless effort to drum up business at retail stores, or is it a cynical exploitation of fallen veterans on a day meant to honor their ultimate sacrifice?
Is it a healthy expression of our capitalist spirit, or a refection of America's indifference to the service of men and woman in uniform and the lives cut short in defense of the country?
It's worthwhile to consider a tragic statistic: Every hour, day in and day out, a veteran chooses death over life in America. A Department of Veterans Affairs report showed that veterans are at least twice as likely as non-veterans to commit suicide.
Is this tragic phenomenon, which is often rooted in veterans' feeling of neglect and alienation, related to the way we celebrate Memorial Day?
We might seek answers and inspiration in the virtues of gratitude and devotion, so beautifully expressed in the concluding sentence of President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Avraham Azrieli