There’s a peculiar mix of emotion that fills the soul on Memorial Day. It is a somber holiday that reminds Americans of the unique character of those who have fallen in service to our nation.
Honor. Pride. Grief. Dedication. This list can be endless for some, especially those who served alongside those who gave their lives to preserve our American freedoms.
It is no less fitting that those of us in the firearm and ammunition industry – the industry that provides the means for America’s warriors to defend the U.S. Constitution – also pause to remember those who have fallen in war defending American freedoms. The firearm and ammunition industry is especially connected to this holiday. Our industry forged the tools these men and women carried with them into battle. Our factories and boardrooms are home to veterans who served alongside those who sacrificed their lives to defend freedom. It is a cost, we know, that is immeasurably high and one that cannot be repaid.
Their Gift
The fallen appear larger than life. However, to those few of us who served in war with them, their memories are frozen in time. While we have grown older and grayer, they remain as we knew them. They are young and eager. They are untouched by age. They are the promise of tomorrow – a gift that each gave to everyone single one of us, even though we might not have known them as closely as others.
Memorial Day will be marked by flags decorating the graves of these Americans across the country. Much of the country will be focused on the 639 acres of Arlington National Cemetery, where I, along with countless others, have close friends who rest eternally. America’s fallen will also be remembered at countless gravesites across the nation – and indeed around the world. Crosses marking those resting places in France, the Philippines, Japan, Noth Africa, Italy and far-flung places of battle such as Guadalcanal and those resting places known only to God, are a reminder of the cost of freedom Americans enjoy.
Memorial Day, while a day of remembrance, is also a day of rededication. It is a reminder for those of us who remain that we have an obligation to an American worthy of the sacrifice these men and women made. They gave all their tomorrows so we might live out our own.
Our Responsibility
President John F. Kennedy, himself a veteran of WWII, reminded us as much when he said, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter the words, but to live by them.”
President Ronald Reagan echoed those thoughts in 1982, telling America, “And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions, we must strive to keep faith with them and with a vision that led them to battle and a final sacrifice.”
We who served alongside our fellow service members lost to war and all those who reap the blessings of the freedom their lives purchased for us should commit ourselves to the dictum given to us by President Abraham Lincoln. In his Gettysburg Address President Lincoln reminded us -
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here, have, thus far, so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
– Mark Oliva
Mark Oliva is Managing Director of Public Affairs for NSSF. He is a retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant with 25 years of service, including tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Albania, and Zaire.
