Thanking those who fought and honoring those who died
I was sitting on the main street in Alden, Minn., enjoying a can of soda when I noticed people gathering a block away at the cemetery. It was Memorial Day, and I guessed a ritual of some kind was about to take place.
Then I heard the drums and the marching cadence. The parade swept around the corner and headed straight down the street for the cemetery. The color guard led the parade of World War II veterans carrying their vintage rifles with a drill sergeant barking orders. Then came the school band all dressed in bright red-and-black uniforms and playing patriotic songs. Finally, at the tail end of the parade, marched the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts.
Seeing Memorial Day parades these days is unusual because many small communities have given up remembering those who sacrificed for our freedom. But in Alden, where fewer than a thousand people live, they still manage to assemble a small parade.
After prayers and a short speech at the cemetery, the veterans fired three rounds in honor of their fallen comrades. Then people milled around the graves remembering old friends and weeping over tragic deaths. It's a religious thing in small towns across the Midwest, and as long as vets from World War II are still around, there will be a ritual on Memorial Day in places like Alden, Minn.
We're getting rather lazy about these community rituals that once took place in every little town across the United States.
They were important to many people who may have said goodbye to a loved one who never returned home. Now wars are fought and young people leave home for the military, and most of us don't realize the great sacrifices that are still being made.
During World War II, people were so frightened of the enemy and grateful for our military force that small towns built billboards on Main Street with the names of the men and women who were fighting for freedom around the world. And when a family lost a son or daughter in the war, a small red, white and blue banner with a gold star for each fallen family member was placed in a window of the family home.
Those rituals have all been lost, and when the World War II veterans are all gone, we will probably not have Memorial Day parades. Then the horror of war will be forgotten.
That's what World War II taught this country, that war is so savage that it should never happen again. We honored those men and women who left their homes to fight an enemy that truly threatened our freedom.
The entire country pitched in to help. There were years when no copper pennies were struck, no cars built, no homes were constructed in any city in the United States.
Most citizens hoped that World War II would end all war forever. Of course, it didn't. But it was the war that drastically changed the United States. People came home from that war and started attending church. Places of worship were never fuller, and many churches and synagogues had to expand their sanctuaries. People in the United States have never been more religious. But more than religion got a boost after the war. The suburbs were created. Interstate highways cut across the land, giving people mobility they never dreamed of having. Business was never better, and people were never happier.
I don't want to sound like a fuddy-duddy, lamenting the lost majesty of a bygone time. But a person can't help but wonder what will happen when we entirely forget our rituals. Will religion fade without ceremony? Will people forget how ghastly war can be and stop searching for peace? Will the nation become less thankful and more cavalier about death and life? Will citizens forget that it is our human duty to carry out selfless acts?
For many of those veterans, World War II was their finest hour. They have never been better human beings than they were when terror surrounded them. When the war was over, they marched forward healing the wounds of war and rebuilding the world.
What a magnificent generation, and they all deserve our thanks. That's what the people of Alden, Minn., were doing with their little ritual on Memorial Day, thanking those who fought and honoring those who died.
Clark D. Morphew
6-9-01
