"Still Worth Dying For"

The ironic aspect of giving a memorial tribute is  that the people to whom you offer tribute cannot hear you.  The best you can do is offer your tribute, post-mortem, to the family of the deceased, or to those with whom they served. Of course, when it comes to remembering those who died to establish freedom for a nation, or for the concept of freedom, family and colleagues are often not present either.  But, do we stop remembering the heroes of the Civil War or World War I because there is no one left to thank?  No, we go on giving tribute, year after year, decade after decade, to men and women who to us are anonymous and to whom we were unknown. For good reason.

When a soldier chooses a path of life that may result in death he likely thinks of people he knows and loves as the reason “why” he go down that path.  But perhaps she also thinks of millions she doesn’t know, and millions yet unborn, whom she wants to taste freedom rather than oppression.  Still freedom, as a concept, is worth dying for only if there are practical, living, breathing examples of freedom’s reward.  In the land that claims “freedom” as its song, the native citizens often choose to ignore the reason for the three-day weekend we call Memorial Day.  Perhaps this is because so many don’t know of anyone who died or risks dying for their freedom. How short-sighted they are.

But then there are people like Asim Manizada.  He was pictured in a national newspaper in his room with a large American flag as his only wall decoration. (WSJ, 5.25.14) Mr. Manizada is, I imagine, engaged in some form of memorial tribute this weekend not because he knows the heroes whom the flag represents,  but because he appreciates the freedom they preserved for him.  You see, he is not a citizen yet, but he is signed up to join the United States military so he can quicken his pace of becoming a citizen.  He is a part of a program the military offers to legal immigrants in which, if they have special skills, they can vastly shorten their road to citizenship by serving the nation which they long to call home.  In yet another irony, many of the people most likely to celebrate the meaning of Memorial Day are those do not yet have the freedom they celebrate.

Why offer a memorial tribute this weekend to people you don’t know and who didn’t know you?  Ask Mr. Manizada.  Better yet, ask God. Freedom is still worth dying for.