Memorial Day A Good Day for a Reckoning

Memorial Day is one of those occasions when it’s harder for re-Tweeters to pretend their commitment to the social good is not merely an exercise in shrill masturbation. Putting your life on the line in service of your nation isn’t the only manner of sacrifice, it’s merely a much greater sacrifice than pretty much everyone else. Everybody loves a good war. Not everybody is willing to fight in it. Today we honor those who are.

There was a time in our country when everybody was affected by overseas battles. Now it’s relatively small few. Contribution has evolved as an idea. Rather than volunteer at a local school, why not a Change.org petition condemning the U.S. Department of Education ruling on gender non specific toilets?

Voicing displeasure is the hill taken. Signaling virtue is the modern day equivalent of three days in a fox hole pinned down and out numbered. It’s easy to lament the vague notion of the Greatest Generation having turned into the self-serving ironic hat wearing whining armchair quarterbacks of the Powder Puff Generation. It’s less easy to accept that exactly what’s happened. Not today. Not when we honor the fact that the former shed no tears so that the latter could cry incessantly. Only the good die young.