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Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend is when we try to reconcile our dual deep-seated appreciations of leisure time and wartime sacrifice. On the surface, it seems like a stretch to combine great food from the grill, flip-flops, and SPF 30 with some of our most solemn commemorations of those citizens who put their own lives between this country and those who would do it harm.  The trivialities of our own early salute to summer fun sometimes seem an unworthy part of the tradition of honoring war dead. But then we imagine that not a few soldiers, in the last hopeless moments of that ultimate sacrifice we honor on Memorial Day, may have found some comfort and refuge in memories of families having fun on a warm late-spring day at home. Their sacrifice seems so immense to us not because they gave up solemnity and ceremony, but because they gave up the profound joys of the “trivialities” of family life at home.

So we commit ourselves again in ceremony and commemoration to the broad freedoms and democratic principles that continue to inspire ordinary citizens to fight and, too often, to die for their country. Because after 234 years we still enjoy those freedoms and that democracy, our debt to them is deep. Our payment on that debt should include not only our own willingness to sacrifice in defense of these principles when there is a need, but also a determination to live full lives in peace in a world made better by our efforts to build happy families, vital communities, and better communication and understanding where there is distrust and suspicion. And if we can enjoy a little fun in the sun and a barbecue while we’re at it, all the better.

Memorial Day ceremonies in Newtown are scheduled for 11 am, Monday, May 31, in front of Veterans’ Hall on Tinkerfield Road near the intersection of Main Street South and Mile Hill Road. We encourage everyone to attend.

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