Teaching Kids That Sacrifice Is The Real Meaning of Memorial Day

By Cami Beiter ~~~~~ As I sit thinking about Memorial Day and its meaning, I continue to think about it’s perception on the younger generation.  If we don’t emphasize and stress the importance of the sacrifices our service members have made (or making), how will they come to appreciate the luxury of their freedom?

Reminding them to thank a soldier or thinking about grandpa and his war time duty, isn’t enough.  To them, it’s like telling them to clean their room.  If they aren’t truly vested with a clear understanding, they won’t appreciate the message. 

What they need to understand is sacrifice, something we typically think nothing of on any given day. But talk to a veteran or a family affected by war and you will find a story.

During WWII, my grandfather was a U.S. Army Paratrooper serving in Europe and member of the Office Of Strategic Services (O.S.S).  For nearly four years, he had virtually no written communication with my grandmother.  She would frequently receive a typed letter from a war office in Washington D.C., saying he was alive but whereabouts classified.

My father missed my brother’s first birthday while on his first tour in Vietnam.  On the back of his leather bound journal, he neatly drew each month..crossing off each day…another day closer to home.  

My brother served on the U.S.S. Shenandoah as a U.S. Navy deep sea diver…a diving accident left him 30% deaf in one ear. 

My husband George, while on active duty at The Pentagon, was the first to know of his roommate from the U.S. Naval Academy, Robbie, was killed during a helicopter training exercise.  

Everything I thought I knew about sacrifice and commitment to country really hadn’t affected me directly, until now.

Robbie was a sword bearer at our wedding.  He was a remarkable pilot…talented, funny, intelligent, loving, a great dancer… His motto was: “I ain’t afraid!”  It had to be a mistake, impossible.  He was too alive to be dead.  

The funeral was filled with pressed white military uniforms, clanging service metals and tight haircuts.  I listened to George give a remarkable and moving eulogy of his friend.  It was the first time I saw George cry.  I couldn’t help but stare and mourn for Robbie’s parents.  It seemed so unnatural for parents to be burying their son.    It was on that day I saw groups of men and women embrace one another and bury a young friend. 

After Robbie’s death, each night when we put our children to bed, we always said a special prayer for Uncle Robbie.  The kids were so little they never questioned who Uncle Robbie was.  They assumed he was just another person on the long list of relatives we repeated night after night at bedtime.  Then one night, Landon our middle son, asked, “Who’s Uncle Robbie?”  George told the children all about Uncle Robbie, who he was, how they became such great friends and how he died.  Our children have all grown up knowing the ultimate sacrifice Capt. Robert Falkenbach made on that autumn day in September of 1998.

So on this Memorial Day, I can’t help but wonder if others are doing the same.  I’m fearful our society is losing the connection…the connection to stress the emphasis and importance of the true meaning of this holiday.  I’m especially fearful of the younger generation not pausing to understand or take a vested interest.

Have you seen any type of recognition at your work?  School?  My only hope is that you paused, thought and appreciated for what this day truly is…A Memorial Day!