Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day and I'm not sure what to write.  I've had an uneasy sense of this holiday for much of my life, seeing myself as a pacifist.  The two most recent American wars, those in Iraq and Afghanistan, have seemed so misguided to me.  And re-reading Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece Gone with the Wind has reminded me of the devastation that the Civil War wrought throughout the South, devastation that still reverberates today.

Yet I realize that those who fight in our wars, whether they're relatives or friends or strangers, fight on my behalf whether or not I agree with the cause.  They've given of themselves in ways that I would not.  On this holiday, then, I'm reminded every year to offer up thanks and remembrance for those who have served.