Memorial day – A reflection on meaning

By Joseph Carvalko | 24 May 2025
Church and State

(Credit: Joe Carvalko)

Each year on the last Monday of May, the United States pauses to pay tribute to the men and women, who in military service to our country, died. And, by logical extension this honorific extends to others around the world, who have died in service of an honorable cause during wartime. We pray for our heroic dead, who, in the words of the American civil war general John A. Logan made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes.

In anticipation of this special day each year I challenge myself to remember my first parade. WWII had just ended, May 8, 1945, and my father had yet returned from fighting fascism in Europe. I stood next to my mother watching men in uniform 4, 8 and 16 across, three times as tall as I, marching down Main Street, USA, echoes of brass bands playing in the distance, people cheering, clapping each time the skeleton of a new regiment crossed our line of sight.

I remember three soldiers in wheel chairs from the Civil War, 1861-64, troops who’d fought in the Spanish American War, 1899, dozens of companies who’d fought in World War I, 1918, and then a jeep-filled procession of wounded from WWII, followed by those serving on the home front.

Among those in the crowd were parents and grandparents, brothers, sisters, veterans and veterans to be, and those that would perish in wars yet named: the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, the first Iraq War, a second Iraq War, Afghanistan, wars against ISIS, those that now serve around the world. Thinking about these times comes hard, time gradually erasing the details of scores of flag-waving parades I’ve witnessed in the course of a long life.

Let’s bow our heads for one moment to contemplate this solemn occasion. And consider that our goal is peace, not war. Remember what Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world – indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Some wars end in peace, and sadly others don’t, they just stop killing wholesale. One hopes that Memorial Day can be set aside to show respect to those who gave their lives during armed conflicts, especially for democratic ideals, by focusing attention away from war, rather than its propagation.

On this day we, when we ironically celebrate a holiday, with picnics and revelry, let us quietly honor our wartime dead by readings from: Wilfred Owens or Rudyard Kipling, or about the lives of Gandhi, King, Sakharov, or Havel? Their words are the haunting melodies of resistance to war, perhaps more appropriate for honoring Memorial Day.

Joseph Carvalko is an American lawyer, who for over four decades has represented numerous organizations and individuals, from billionaires to indigents. He has been actively engaged in organizations such as Amnesty International, as its Legislative Coordinator for the State of New Mexico; the Sioux City American Indian Center, board member/activist; and Chairman, Technology and Ethics Working Research Group, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Quinnipiac University, School of Law, teaching Law, Science and Technology. He has also worked as a technologist, where he’s been awarded 18 patents in various fields. Carvalko has authored over twelve books which include novels, poetry, law, science and the humanities. His articles appear regularly in a variety of publications and blogs. He lives on the U.S. east coast and in the New Mexico mountains.

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