old glory

It’s Memorial Day in the States, originally a day for decorating the graves of the Union dead (the Confederates, naturally enough, had their own Confederate Memorial Day scattered across the calendar throughout their various states (it was, after all, a confederacy, not a union)), and later a day to recognize the sacrifices of soldiers of all wars. Now, Memorial Day is largely a day for barbeques and political speechmaking.

It ought also to be a day for reflection on the price of freedom, and of the costs of war, and for reading a little poetry:

• In Flanders Field, John McCrae
• Death of a Ball Turret Gunner, Randall Jarrell
• Does it Matter?, Siegfried Sassoon
• Dulce et decorum est, Wilfred Owen