Remembrance
Every day is Memorial Day in some way
For me, every day is Memorial Day in some way. When I was climbing I kept a careful accounting of my friends and partners who died in the mountains. By October 1999 my list had 40 names on it and I quit counting for a while. I quit climbing too. Which didn't stop anyone dying from that but me. By 2010 the count was up to about 60 and it wasn't exclusively climbers on the list any longer.
I started training military personnel in 1999 and as the GWOT kicked off former students — some of whom I'd spent good time with in the mountains — traveled overseas and lost their lives. Then, on August 6th, 2011 Extortion 17 was shot down and the list that lived a sick life of its own in the back of my head grew by 20 percent.
My climbing friends who died were prey to an obsession, to the addiction of going harder, higher, for longer. Many of them died doing what they were put on this earth to do. Not necessarily what "they love" but certainly what they could do better than most, and you know it when you see it. The same might be said for some of the soldiers I trained. As cliché as it sounds, they were the best of the best.
When a member of any brotherhood falls the whole becomes weaker, and each surviving individual is slightly poorer. When the best and most talented among us die the loss is greater. Especially when they lose their lives in the service of an ideal, of our society, of other living and breathing individuals because the shine on the ideal tarnishes with each death. When our most capable men and women die young, before they can express their capacity to influence positive growth and change, the potential of society as a whole shrinks. Theirs is a sacrifice worth honor and remembrance, and we who remain ought to think about what we might do to fill in the gaps where we can.
A dozen or so years ago, as part of my old gym project and movie training work I helped write and film several short videos for what the National Guard called its "Soldier of Steel" program. This was a marketing tie-in for Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" movie aimed to boost recruiting, and to increase the overall physical fitness of Guard members, which was seen as a problem. These video pieces were ostensibly about training, about working out, but I saw something more; ideals expressed in physical action, and those actions informing and putting meat on the bones of one's ideals. Sometimes sport and training for it seems frivolous, and selfish. You can see it that way, that the more work you do the more capable you alone become. Or you can view your own increased physical and mental capacity as an example for others, and that your actions ultimately benefit the people around you — whether you intend that outcome or not.
Some of us have found our identity in action. Others find it through education. Still others seek identity in appearance, and acquisition. Some submit themselves to a movement or cause while others choose service to society, to others. Service is admirable, and the more capable you are — the more you know and the more you can do — the greater the service you can render. This should be our ultimate objective: to become the most capable individuals that we can be.
Yes, of course, you should do the hard work in selfish pursuit of your own goals because achieving them will put you in a position to contribute greater value to those closest to you, and to those you may never meet, who are all around you every single day.
On this Memorial Day, take a moment to watch a flag flutter on the breeze. Consider what it means to you, and what it has meant to others. And then spend another moment reading General Douglas MacArthur's speech to the U.S. Military Academy upon accepting the Thayer Award in 1962.
"Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be."
Service to something besides oneself has become rare it seems. But when you and others make the sacrifice and an accomplish things that are difficult there is a reaffirmation of those values and a certain serenity. Sometimes those sacrifices include losing people and all the pain that entails. But that is why we chose to Remember.
Well written, as usual. I needed to read this right now. Thank you.