Macy’s week-long Memorial Day Sale is typical of specials offered throughout the three-day holiday weekend origi- nally designed to honor America’s veterans & war heroes.

ESCAPE FROM REALITY, AND VACATION
WIN OUT OVER HONORING SACRIFICES
MADE BY THOSE IN THE U.S. MILITARY

MEMORIAL DAY SALES ABOUND
 
By David Maril
 
It’s easy to lose sight of what we are commemorating on Memorial Day weekend.

With this past weekend a national holiday, most of were preoccupied for several days with travel plans and quick getaways, trying to avoid crowded highways and mobbed airports.

The agenda for many was a long weekend at a resort area.

I had a truck transport company take a shipment of artwork for me in Baltimore up to New York on May 21st, and they showed up an hour early, at 7 a.m.

“There’s a four-day holiday coming up and we want to get an early start on it,” was the driver’s explanation.

At beach resort areas, Memorial Day Weekend is becoming an adult version of Spree Day or Spring break for over-the-hill celebrators who want to relive their college Florida getaways.

One beach hotel complex manager I know on Cape Cod told me that from her standpoint, Memorial Day Weekend is the worst holiday.

“We have more trouble with accidents and out of control behavior,” she explained.

“A higher percentage of people just show up to party, have a good time and do crazy things.. A few years ago I had guests staying here ending up in the hospital. One person crashed through a window and another fell off an upper deck balcony,” she said.

To be realistic, the majority of us do not give much thought about why there is a holiday, or honoring all those great Americans who sacrificed their lives for our country in war.

There are parades and speeches for those who served and  those who  were directly impacted by the loss of relatives and close friends. But for most of us, escapism has been the major goal.

We are committed to relaxation, excitement and fun. We’ll do anything to avoid reality for an extra day or two.

Even the elite New Yorker magazine jumped on the holiday-sale bandwagon, with this ad offering Memorial Day magazine specials to readers of select publications.

War remembrances don’t coincide with our modern lifestyles. We blot war out of our minds.

People will get all worked up over whether Tom Brady deserves to be suspended four games for allegedly taking air out of footballs or if Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But there’s little interest in what is happening in our undeclared wars in the Middle East and around the world.

We are preoccupied with mindless “reality” TV shows and only become interested in political, economic and social issues when they have direct impact on us, like when gasoline goes up to $4 a gallon.

It’s too easy to blot out any news about war and the realization we have thousands of Americans right now putting their lives on the line around the world.

It’s business as usual back in the states. If it wasn’t for dribs and drabs of media coverage, which many people ignore or avoid, the many of us who  don’t have relatives and friends in the military wouldn’t be concerned at all about international conflict.

Unlike World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the early years of the Vietnam War, there’s no longer a military draft. If Americans from all walks of life were required to serve, there would be a lot more concern because so many more people would be directly impacted.

With heavy reliance on technology and the use of drones to do much of our fighting, we now live in a country that downplays much of the action taking place in war. Our political leaders do everything in their power to minimize the chances that people here will have to think about overseas conflict.

In earlier generations, the entire civilian population was forced to make sacrifices. We used to have rationing, and limits on travel; and everyone, no matter what their age, participated in some type of effort, helping produce materials to aid in the war effort and practice conservation.

Today, when we are at war, our focus is on tax breaks, keeping the corporate economy booming and spending as much money as possible on our own entertainment. In this climate, it’s easy to see why so many of us waste our time worshipping celebrities and their affluent lifestyles while too often failing to recognize the real heroes who make sacrifices for our country.

                              “Memorial Day — A Time to Honor America’s Heroes”

Sadly enough, maybe the answer to spreading awareness of war reality is through our obsession with escapism. Perhaps it would make a difference if people spent a few hours during the Memorial Day holiday watching an appropriate movie that conveys the sacrifices of all who serve, victims and survivors, in the military during the horror of wartime.

Although there are many great war movies that come to mind, two  of my favorites are “Paths of Glory” and “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

Stanley Kubrick put together a classic example in “Paths of Glory” of the demanding and often unfair tasks forced down the throats of soldiers in warfare. The political tap-dancing at the top, with a  focus on finding scapegoats and avoiding responsibility, was a look into the future the way many companies are run in today’s corporate world.

“The Best Years of Our Lives” focuses on a group of survivors from World War II making the difficult adjustment trying to pick up where they left off before military service. William Wyler’s film reminds us of what a severe price, physically and emotionally, many surviving veterans pay.

There are plenty of other classics, including “The Red Badge of Courage,” “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Attack!” “Flags of our Fathers,” “The Deer Hunter” and “Stop-Loss.”

It’s impossible to watch one of these films and not realize a stronger appreciation for the sacrifices those who serve in war make.
 
davidmaril@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
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