Blessed Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day?

Happy?

I’ve never understood that greeting for this holiday. Memorial Day is not a happy day. It is a somber day. Full of gratitude, sure, but still somber. 

Memorial Day was established in 1868 to honor the military members who lost their lives in service to this country. It was later made a federal holiday in 1971. Its purpose is to remember sacrifice, loss, death. It’s a day to be thankful there were those willing to give their lives for our freedoms and safety and also to grieve them, but it is not a happy kind of celebration.

I think it’s also a good day to remember those who gave their lives but weren’t able to be recognized for their true selves. Until 2011, military service members who were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer in any way were not allowed to be open about it. They hid their truth and masked themselves, and they did it because they placed the importance of serving this country over their own authenticity. Talk about sacrifice! How many of these noble souls died for us? 

For decades (for a couple of centuries actually), anyone who was LGBTQ+ in the military suffered from fear if not also harassment and worse. Fear of being found out and then harassed, harmed, or discharged. The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy of the 1990s and 2000s was theoretically supposed to protect these service members from harassment and dismissal (as long as they hid the truth about themselves) as a compromise from totally banning their service, but it caused as much or more harm as it tried to prevent. I wonder about how many precious men and women suffered mentally and emotionally from the fear and the necessary duplicity. How many died without ever getting to live as their full selves? How many had grieving partners that couldn’t mourn openly? 

Since 2011, LGBTQ+ service members can be open about their orientation and gender. Thankfully, the majority of their experiences are that their fellow members don’t care and are even protective of them if needed. There are exceptions to everything, but at least we are moving in the right direction in this case. But Memorial Day is one for looking back, not forward. And on a day like this, it’s important to remember it wasn’t always this way; it wasn’t always allowed or accepted. We will never know how many beautiful souls gave their lives for us while they weren’t allowed to give their full selves to us. But we can still remember them and honor them, mourn their deaths and celebrate their lives. We were blessed by them in more ways than we realized. And that’s how I choose to greet you on this day. Blessed Memorial Day. 

I think today is equally appropriate to lament the need for military and such deaths, but for now, it is our reality. We have a large military, and we have thousands die in service to it, for us, every year, and they deserve our gratitude, our grief, and at least this one day to remember how they blessed us with their sacrifice. Let us bless their memories in return by not cheapening this day with frivolous parties and ignorant greetings. Let us be grateful but also somber. 

Thank you to all those who died for us, especially those who didn’t get to live as themselves. 

Blessed Memorial Day.