Why Memorial Day is Important

Pope John Paul II famously said, “War is not always inevitable, it is always a defeat for humanity”.[1] For those of us living in the United States, Memorial Day can and should serve as the ultimate example of this fact. Today, we should remember the lives lost due to the ravages of war. We should remember the sacrifices of the past. So many people have had their lives ruined by war. Not only do we see a countless number of soldiers who died during battle, we find so many more who find their lives ruined because of what they have seen and done on the battlefield. They came back maimed;  they came back psychologically damaged; they found little to no peace for themselves.  For some, they came back heroes, but for so many, they came back to find themselves mistreated, abused by their countrymen, allowing them no chance to find the inner healing they needed to turn their lives around. We must also remember the families of soldiers; they, too, have sacrificed much, have found so much pain and sorrow as a result of war, due to the lives which have been lost.  War is a defeat for humanity, and we must remember the past, we must remember the tragic side of war, so that we can overcome all romantic visions of war and stop ourselves from looking for it, or worse, looking for people to conscript so as to send them out to war. So many good people lost their lives because of man’s inhumanity, because of man’s hatred for their fellow man. We should honour them by remembering them today; then, we should say with Pope Paul VI, “No more war! Never again war!”[2] We must do everything we can so as to prevent the tragedy of the past to return to us today. By looking at the past, we can see the sorrow of war and know why we must prevent it. This is what we can get out of Memorial Day. This is why Memorial Day is important.