Memorial Day 2025: May They Rest In Peace – David Stringer, Publisher

By MB – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

[Editor’s Note:  The following column  has been updated from the  Publisher’s traditional Memorial Day message]

Memorial Day is a day set aside in honor and solemn remembrance of our nation’s war dead. For Prescott this lovely time in May also marks the beginning of summer and our busy tourist season. Summertime brings music and events on the Courthouse square, the Rodeo and 4^th of July parade, travel plans and family vacations, warm nights on the patio, and a multitude of good times. Summer visitors fill our hotels and restaurants, bring crowds to our downtown and generate a third of Prescott’s sales tax revenue. We welcome their return. By all means, bring on the summer.

But the sober side of Memorial Day should not be forgotten. The one million war dead since our nation’s founding brings a measure of gravitas to this day that deserves reflection.  As  Americans we like to think of ourselves as a free people—a beacon of human rights and dignity that sets an example for the world.  What America has accomplished in the history of nations has come at a great price in blood and sacrifice.

As we move deeper into the 21^st century—2025 is  the quarter mark–  it is not at all clear that America remains the nation it once was. We still have many assets including the world’s biggest economy and strongest military. But many of our countrymen are struggling.  Why are so many homeless?  Why are so many living with financial insecurity?  Why are our cities full of crime and decay?  Why are our public schools an embarrassment of overspending and underperformance?

We still have the world’s biggest military and spend more on national defense than all the other nations of the world combined. But the United States hasn’t  won a military engagement since WWII. With the election of Donald Trump, for many of us the outlook has brightened. Military recruitment is up.  We have regained control of our borders. But with federal judges thwarting Trump’s  effort to repatriate illegals and fake asylum  seekers,  it’s obvious that a lot of damage has been done and may be irreversible.

Our country’s decline invites a moment of sober thought–despite spending more of our national treasure on the most advanced military technology than any other nation or group of nations– we have lost every military engagement since 1945.  Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, Syria and Afghanistan all ended in failure. Our latest proxy war in the Ukraine is leaving their country in ruins  and created millions of refugees, with no end  in sight. We send billions of dollars overseas to Ukraine and Israel, while millions of our countrymen can’t afford decent health care and struggle to get by. What’s going on? What happened to America?  The war dead we honor on Memorial Day didn’t let us down. But many leaders at every level of government have let us down. We still have the vote. Why have we let them abuse our trust?

This morning, at Prescott’s National Veterans Cemetery, a third world immigrant will serve as keynote speaker. The vast majority of the graves at the National Veterans Cemetery are those of white soldiers. Some are puzzled by the symbolism of choosing as the most conspicuous figure in the ceremony, an immigrant who never served in the US  military.  Are there no qualified veterans who might have served as a keynote speaker at a Memorial Day observance?

Fifty-eight thousand American soldiers died in the jungles of South Vietnam in a failed effort to prevent a communist takeover. Many hundreds of  thousands of American veterans bear the scars of wounds suffered in that war. The speaker in question is a foreign born, partisan candidate for political office at a time when immigration has divided our country. In his campaign appearances, he likes to tout his patriotism and laces his talks with anti-communist and pro-American tropes. Some native-born Americans find this rhetoric patronizing.  America’s constitutional democracy was founded by European settlers 250 years ago. The United States was a great country before waves of third world immigrants and phony asylum seekers came to improve us.

Prescott, with its large retiree population, is home to many veterans. Two of our historic cemeteries, Prescott’s Citizen’s Cemetery and the National Veterans Cemetery, both founded in 1864, are the final resting place for over 3000 of our nation’s veterans reaching back to the Indian Wars and the founding of Fort Whipple in the Arizona Territory. The National Veterans Cemetery, 500 Highway 89 North, will hold a Memorial Day Commemoration Ceremony at 11:00am. The ceremony will include a wreath laying and taps.

Grave site ceremonies honoring the valor and sacrifice of soldiers who died in war are deep in human history. Today’s Memorial Day traces its origins to the Civil War period when women of the South began wreath laying ceremonies on the graves of Confederate dead.

Following an upsurge in patriotism and nationalist sentiments, at least in the North, associated with the end of the Civil War, ceremonies commemorating the war dead spread throughout the country.

The Memorial Day we celebrate today was officially designated by the federal government in 1967. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968, moved the date from May 30^th to the last Monday in May. For many,  Memorial Day has become just another three-day weekend. The original purpose and solemnity of the day of remembrance has given way to recreation and holiday sales.

A visit to one of our country’s national cemeteries will quickly dispel any idea that Memorial Day is just another antiquated custom for veterans and aging  patriots. The fresh graves from our country’s wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are reminders that American soldiers are still being asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. Arlington National Cemetery and many other national cemeteries across the country continue to open new burial sites for our nation’s veterans. Those graves are proof, if any proof were needed,  that freedom is not free. Our Constitutional Republic and democratic way of life are still being bought with the blood of our countrymen. Memorial Day is the day we have set apart to remember, honor, and to mourn those who have given their lives in battle so that our country can live in freedom.

Requiescant in pace.  May they rest in peace