A Day to Remember

Ah, Memorial Day weekend. The opening salvo of summer. Barbecues. Beer. My Facebook and Twitter accounts are overflowing with recipes for grilled everything, summer cocktails and workout routines to get you in shape for the beach. In spite of the dismal New England weather (rainy and in the 50s Saturday & Sunday) I'm right there with all of it. Monday morning brings sun and warmer temperatures which means opening the deck, planting the herb garden, firing up the gas grill and popping open a cold beer or summery bottle of sauvignon blanc.

Last night, I had Twitter and Facebook battles with several people on the other side of politics from me. They attacked, I counterattacked and vice-versa.  I actually tweeted Sarah Palin and referred to her as "The Queen of Stupid " because she used the pretense of thanking veterans to attack the President. Harsh perhaps, but her message was in bad form and my response was no harsher than she doles out on a daily basis. I had a Facebook argument with an old friend about how long it took the President to make the decision to launch the Bin Laden raid, implying that he had no right to criticize because he'd never served in the military. Wrong? Possibly. He certainly has the right to comment as do we all in this great country.

This morning Twitter provided more tips for the perfect burger in addition to a half-dozen hate-tweets from Sarah Palin fans. Scrolling through the messages it occurred to me that today it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that since September 2001:

• 6640 US service members and 16 Dept. of Defense civilians have been killed in combat
• 50, 155 service members and 295 DoD civilians have been wounded.
• 131,341 service members have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

We must never forget them. We must never use them as political pawns. We must never take the decision to send them into harms' way lightly. We must never blame them for the political decisions with which we disagree. We must always keep in mind that they willingly and without question deployed to another country, engaged in combat with an enemy and consistently defeated that enemy irrespective of the politics behind the battle. Some died, some were wounded. The survivors will be forever altered by the experience, even if they don't know it.

So as we bring our grills back to life after a long hard winter and  sip from a frosty beer bottle, we must take a minute to think about them and the hundreds of thousands who came before them. Today it doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum we favor. What matters is that because of them we can favor any side we please.