Complex Numbers

Memorial

Today is Memorial Day here in the US, a federal holiday for remembering and honoring persons who have died while serving in the Armed Forces. How do you honor those who have passed (whether they served in the military or not)?

You know what would honor the military dead?

Not making any more of them.

Also, actually taking care of those who didn't die in the military instead of, you know, leaving them homeless on the street or whatever.

Since neither of those things are actually going to happen - not that I have any influence over it one way or the other - all I can do is focus on an individual basis. Which is where I could talk about actual things that I do, but that would end up either a) seeming like not enough or b) virtue signaling on my part. Neither of which I want to get involved with.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not one who worships the military. I don't see a connection between, say, not standing for the National Anthem and anything to do with the military, even though I understand that there are those who would make that connection. A flag is merely a symbol; a service member is an actual human being. And what the flag symbolizes is a whole hell of a lot more than participation in war.

But my father was in the service, and while he retired and lived to a reasonably old age and didn't die in a war, I have respect for those who served in the military - at least in terms of their service; a lot of them can be assholes, just like everyone else. I just don't really buy into the whole "they died for our freedoms" rhetoric; they died doing an incredibly hard job, yes, but we haven't had a war that was about "freedom" for a long time, now. Revenge, political gain, economic reasons, sure - but none of that is the fault of those who served.

Reading over this, I realize I'm not all that coherent about it. Must mean I have some emotion tied up in it. And I guess I do, because of my father and a lot of other people I've known.

And yet, what am I going to do, specifically, today, Memorial Day? Absolutely nothing I wouldn't do on any other day. And that includes not having a barbecue.