Our View

Keeping the ‘memorial’
in Memorial Day weekend

For many of us, the upcoming long weekend means it’s time to take out our summer clothes, fire up the barbecue, throw parties or relax with family. Hopefully, it’s also a time when we can reflect, if only for a moment, on the reason Monday’s holiday exists in the first place.

For younger generations, it had become all too easy in recent years to ignore or forget about the importance of this national holiday and resulting three-day weekend. We would associate the day’s meaning with soldiers who died in wars primarily fought decades ago, before many of us were born.

That all changed on Sept. 11, 2001 — a day that marked the beginning of a new war, one that may never end and that will continue to cost us lives. The lives it costs us are not just those of our military troops, but also those of civilians — heroes in their own right who must now also be remembered on Memorial Day.

The war in Iraq showed us that young lives will still be sacrificed when it comes to protecting our nation. They are the lives of people like 21-year-old Narson B. Sullivan of North Brunswick, a U.S. Army soldier who died in Iraq as the result of an accident April 25, and 23-year-old Michael Edward Curtin of Howell, who was killed by an Iraqi suicide bomber March 29.

Whether it’s our neighbors, our loved ones or our ancestors who have given the ultimate sacrifice, it’s important for us all to find a way this weekend to observe Memorial Day.

As Maj. Gen. John A. Logan said in his 1868 order declaring what was then called Decoration Day, "In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but ... comrades will, in their own way, arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit."

Nearly a century and a half later, it has become no less important for us to express our gratitude for those who have fallen in order to protect us.