Memorial Day

Memorial Day in Israel is an awesome one. At the appointed moment, the sirens sound and the country pauses – cars in the street, sunbathers, factory workers, lawyers, farmers, mothers and children. Every family has a soldier – sometimes one in every generation, sometimes more than one – to remember. And because terrorism is a preferred option by the enemy in the current war, civilians are on the front line too and their sacrifice for the country is remembered as well. At sundown, when in the Jewish tradition the new day starts, it is Independence Day.

Memorial Day in Israel is an awesome one. At the appointed moment, the sirens sound and the country pauses – cars in the street, sunbathers, factory workers, lawyers, farmers, mothers and children. Every family has a soldier – sometimes one in every generation, sometimes more than one – to remember. And because terrorism is a preferred option by the enemy in the current war, civilians are on the front line too and their sacrifice for the country is remembered as well. At sundown, when in the Jewish tradition the new day starts, it is Independence Day. People celebrate one more year in the free, vibrant and democratic country that is the result of nothing so much as the willingness of Israelis to stand their ground and pay the ultimate price.

In the United States, Memorial Day and Independence Day are separated by seasons. Memorial Day is less a collective appreciation for soldiers’ sacrifice than the opening of the summer season. Independence Day can be celebrated without reference to those who died to bring our country into being and allow our experiment in democracy to continue. In large measure, America’s physical existence is separated from our willingness to fight. If we were not in Iraq, we would survive.

But how and as whom?

America in the 20th and 21st centuries is not only the land between the oceans – Canada and Mexico fit the bill as well and so does Costa Rica. America, mostly for better and sometimes not, is defined at least as much by what it does as where it is. We have been to war. But we acquired no territory in WWI, WWII or Kuwait, and will acquire none in Afghanistan or Iraq. We stay in the Sinai, Bosnia and Korea for them, not for us. Our commitment to NATO protected the free part of Europe from the Soviet Union. We spent a fortune to shield the countries we had just rescued so they could prosper. In Vietnam we tried – and failed – to stem the flow of communism, not to own it but in hopes that it would evolve the way the other “Asian Tigers” did.

So could we have saved the money and the lives and still have had a country between the two oceans? Yes, but it would not be America.

Our soldiers, from the Revolution to Iraq and in between, are the protectors not only of our personal and national freedom, but also of the American belief that freedom is for everyone. Free countries are important precisely because we don’t own them but associate with them. And in that sense, as in so many others, we and Israel share an important value. Our soldiers are the safeguards not only of our territory but also of our national ethos.

We honor on this Memorial Day all the brave Americans who paid the ultimate price for what we have and cherish.