Podcaster Jesse Kelly, a veteran of the Iraq War, makes the same point the late Kevin R. C. O’Brien (a veteran of Afghanistan) used to make—Memorial Day is not Veterans Day. It’s about the ones who didn’t come back [“Happy Memorial Day?” | WeaponsMan, May 30, 2016].
REMINDER: Do not water down Memorial Day with your niceness. It’s a day to honor those who gave their lives while serving in the military. It’s not for “veterans and cops and first responders!”
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) May 28, 2023
It’s only for the fallen. And their families. They deserve their own day.
In Greenwich, CT, a white woman named Alma Rutgers thinks it’s about George Floyd and slavery:
Alma Rutgers (opinion): On Memorial Day, there's reason to ponder slavery’s racist legacy https://t.co/rb2fQsMaup
— Greenwich Time (@GreenwichTime) May 26, 2023
The reason that comes up is because it was a Memorial Day weekend when Floyd, high on fentanyl, tried to pass a counterfeit 20 dollar bill... and died while he was resisting arrest. See Steve Sailer’s Will We See a Push to Rename Memorial Day as George Floyd Day? [May 14, 2021] and the New York Times’s May 25 Should Be a Day of Mourning for George Floyd [May 21, 2021].
There were riots, aided and abetted by local governments, almost immediately, and an attack on the Trump White House, mentioned above, which has been memory-holed, although it seems much more like an ”insurrection” or attempted Color Revolution than January 6, 2021, seven months later [At least 60 Secret Service members injured during George Floyd protests in DC, Fox News, May 31, 2020].
But that’s not what we’re meant to remember on Memorial Day.
Memorial Day is a specific American holiday, going back to the Civil War.
Our overseas Anglospheric readers celebrate Remembrance Day on November 11 (Armistice Day in the U.S.) in honor of a soul-destroying, seemingly pointless slaughter that destroyed the old order between 1914 and 1918.
But by 1914, the United States had already been memorializing its own soul-destroying, seemingly pointless slaughter for fifty years.
I should say that in both cases, the participants thought they were achieving something, but in the end, they hadn’t.
The reconcilation between North and South helped America become a great nation and do amazing things in the world. Since the start of the Civil Rights Movement, Northern elites have been rejecting that reconciliation, with the result being what we now call the ”Cold Civil War.”
American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen have died overseas in many wars, for reasons good and bad, but they were fighting for their country, and deserve our gratitude.
As we’ve said before, they didn’t die for Open Borders.
James Fulford [Email him] is a writer and editor for VDARE.com.
Previous Memorial Day Columns:
