As a former student of mine, Matt Campbell, posted on his Facebook page today, Americans seem to have little clue of the significance of Memorial Day.  It began in 1868 to honor those who died in the American Civil War by placing flowers on their graves. After the bloodshed of World War I, all soldiers who died in the line of duty were honored.  As Matt notes, most people see Memorial Day as the start of summer and a nice three-day weekend, and very few of us “take the time to remember our fallen soldiers.”

The Denver Post carried an article today about the pain of parents who have lost sons and daughters to war.  Twenty-four year old Staff Sgt. Jacob Frazier of the Illinois National Guard, was killed in Afghanistan in 2003.  “Don’t ever use the word ‘closure’ with me,” his father Jim Frazier said. “I once threw a reporter out who used that word. It’s simply a hole in your heart that is always there . . . and you learn to live with it.” On Memorial Day in 2003, just two months after burying his son, Mr. Frazier agreed to go on a parade float through Chicago. He found the disconnect between his grief and the happy, smiling crowds excruciating.

Another parent, Sandra Miller, mother of Army Pvt. De Wayne White, 27, who died in Iraq in 2007, is “baffled that so many Americans do not recognize or even think about sacrifice, especially on Memorial Day.” “It’s not about having a barbecue. It’s a day for remembering . . . . And what’s up with all the sales?  If one TV channel could just put up the photos of all the fallen for just one day, that would make a huge difference.”   Mr. Frazier is quoted as saying that what we can do is ask family members about their son, daughter, husband or wife.   “The kindest thing you can do is just say, ‘Tell me about him,’ because if you don’t talk, you get sick.”

The words of these bereaved parents gave me an idea.  What if instead of parades, we had, in every single town across this country, a public role call of all the service men and women from that town who have died in war- not just our current ones but all our wars– from the Revolution, to the War of 1812 to the Civil War to the Spanish-American, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War. And all of us took turns reading the names.  And all of us were present to hear the names, to acknowledge that life and loss. We need to take the losses of our wars personally.  Because even if no one in our family ever died in the line of duty, even if we opposed each and every one of these wars, the fallen soldiers died in our names.    And until we remember the cost of war, we have no chance of realizing how we allow the suffering of war to continue.