Observing Memorial Day Appropriately During the Coronavirus Pandemic

           This Memorial Day is even more somber than usual during the novel Coronvavirus pandemic, as Americans remember those who died in service to the United States. 

The War on Terrorism continues, even if the name of the conflict is no longer commonly used to describe the sporadic and low-intensity combat against Islamist terrorists in several foreign States, but few Americans have been killed by enemy action or even by acts of terrorism.  This year, Americans are also mourning 100,000 of their countrymen who have already ready been killed by the contagion in only the last few months, including many veterans, while far more have been sickened by the virus.  Among the disruptions caused by the pandemic has been the cancellation of large public gatherings, whether by law or voluntarily, in keeping with guidance from health officials and common sense, although many do not abide by safe practices, which risks not only themselves, but others.  For once, as a result, this Memorial Day—a day of mourning—is less treated as a celebration with wishes for a “Happy Memorial Day” and picnics and parties, as I have posted about every previous year, and instead is necessarily being treated more as the solemn day of remembrance it was intended to be with an appropriate sense of gratitude for the sacrifice of the many Americans who died for representative government and liberty.

And as I have posted on previous Memorial Days in recent years, fundamental principles of liberty and equality and the rule of law are among those under serious threat.

May American servicemen who died in service from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terrorism be remembered appropriately today and may their sacrifices not be in vain.  Let us be inspired by them to renew our commitment to our American ideals.  God bless America.