A Unique Memorial Day

Do you recall any particular Memorial Day Weekend? Where you were, what you did, and who was there with you? For most of us, we may recall but a few, but most likely they are of fond memories of friends and families gathering and welcoming the approaching days of summer. My hunch is that we will all remember version 2020 for certain! The challenges of getting together with family and friends we had so often taken for granted! The Covid “invasion”, a war itself, fully in place here on our shores and across the world with daily statistics on the casualties, and limiting our daily freedoms. We will remember this Memorial Day Weekend for our own efforts to evade the “enemy” we cannot see and do our best to avoid being exposed. We will for certain remember this 2020 Memorial Day - where we were, what we did, and who was there with us.

This Covid Pandemic is, in essence, a world war. There are many fronts, skirmishes, and big battles, a need for effective leadership, good decisions we all have to make, along with sacrifices required, various shortages and a look to science and technology to help speed us to victory. The battlefronts are playing out in our hospitals and, sadly the most brutal, in our nursing homes. Whereas most wars compromise our youth, in this war the hardest hit are the elderly including our wonderful surviving members of the greatest generation. My heart warms reading about several 100-year-old WW2 veterans recently released from hospitals having survived 3-week battles with Covid. These men born at the tail end of the Spanish Flu pandemic, surviving the Great Depression, serving their country in WW2 and now in their twilight years, yet another challenge to conquer - this time over Covid-19. These men are the reason why we take the time to memorialize those that served and sacrificed. They were and still remain a brave, determined, and tough bunch. And to our own 445th survivors still with us, today - Ray Lemons, Jim Dowling, Jim Baynham among a few others are also living reminders of what Memorial Day is all about. Our personal Covid challenges pale in comparison to what they had to go through. We salute you!

Today our front lines are the nurses, doctors, medical, and hospital workers working around the clock addressing the challenges of each war casualty. This wars’ “Rosie the Riveter” is the grocery clerk, the truck driver, the warehouse worker, the delivery person doing their part to keep the war machine churning. Once again, we look to our scientific community to bring the new weaponry we expect to turn the tide and win the war - an effective vaccine. In the meantime, the rest of us can only play defense.

As we look forward - like with all wars, they eventually come to an end won by courage, co-operation, properly amassing, and deploying the right and best resources. Like all wars, there will be winners and unfortunate losers. And like all wars we will memorialize those that sacrificed. Like all wars, there will be many hero’s sung and unsung.

So, as we continue our fight, it’s hard not to wonder - What would the Greatest Generation do? How would they have fought this war? They knew how to take orders and not complain. They did their very best to execute on those orders. They depended on each other and supported each other. They mastered the fundamentals and just got it done. They understood the need to make sacrifices for the greater good. Bravery, fortitude, and a determination to win. They did it with physical courage and we only have to do the same with social courage. They showed us how it’s done. 

Once again, we give pause this Memorial Day to give thanks for those that have served past and present. Thank you for your courage and the lessons you have given us!