Memorial Day: It's Not About a Sale

Today, this Memorial Day, I've been thinking about Louis, Phil and the rest of the nearly unbelievable stories I read in Laura Hillenbrand's World War II epic, Unbroken. When my mother told me about a story of fallen heroes in our local paper, she said couldn't believe how young they looked, a sentiment I always feel when I see the sailors in town for Fleet Week in New York City. I remembered Owen Meany's reflection in John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, set partly in the Vietnam era, that children fight our wars. And I thought of the English poet Charles Causley's Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience, one of the poems Natalie Merchant brought to sonic life on Leave Your Sleep, where a young boy begs a sailor bound for war,

'Sailor O sailor
Will you bring me
If I give you my penny
And my apricot tree

The sailor promises to bring presents back from the sea. Three long summers go by, and when the ship returns,

All round her wake
The seabirds cried
And flew in and out
Of the hole in her side

The sailor is not on the war-torn ship. His fate is implied, and when a sailor's shipmate tries to give him the gifts, the disillusioned child asks why he's brought him children's toys (so coveted just three years earlier in youth) and where the sailor is. How to answer that question to a child.

While I completely appreciate and understand how overworked Americans are and we need coveted rest and family time at the beach, barbecues, and parks, I'm a little saddened to think our fallen veterans are not getting at the very least some moments of respect and recognition. The most deplorable thing is that it's turned into another sale day for retailers. Salute our war dead: go buy a new television or summer dress made by underpaid labor in China, 25 percent off!

I like to attend a Memorial Day parade to cheer on local veterans and other heroes: police, volunteer fire and ambulance personal. This year, I went to one in Dumont, New Jersey. It was an extremely muggy morning, but at times when I feel discomfort, I think now of Louis and Phil floating in that raft in the Pacific fighting off sharks after their search plane went down and think, stop feeling sorry for yourself!

Historic reenacters remind us of those who scarified for our freedom from England and later to keep our nation unified. Just down the street is an old church with a cemetery where some laid to rest fought for the Revolution.

I wish for peace for future generations. If that's a childish wish, so be it.

"Life was cheap in war," said Martin Cohn, an ordnance officer in Oahu in Hillenbrand's Unbroken. Let's not ever consider life to be cheap, and to not forget the sacrifices.

Mad Men Mondays: History Forgets

Anger fills Roger Sterling's heart at the thought of doing business with Japanese businessmen for a Honda Motorcycle campaign in 1965 on a season 4 episode of Mad Men. Memories remain in his heart of friends lost in World War II. The world has moved on, Roger, so should you. Let it go.

I couldn't help think about Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, the nearly unbelievable story of Louis Zamperini and his fellow servicemen in World War II and the suffering inflicted by the Japanese on our troops and our allies. We hear much of the German atrocities, but relatively little in contrast of what happened in Japan and of the nations they conquered.

I read Unbroken as part of a book group club, and will tell you if you know what happened to Zamperini and his fellow servicemen, you are a better person for it, and a better American. Their story will stay with me always. And while I don't think anyone should redirect anger on civilians who may have had nothing to do with the war, Roger Sterling's anger how quickly the world moved on can give you pause if you think about it coming from someone who served in the war. As Gregory Peck said in the film "The Man in a Gray Flannel Suit," about a World War II vet, you went from catching the train every day as a civilian, to the horrors of war, to come home to catch the train every day.

Consider in Japan, just a wink of an eye in the scheme of time really after the war ended,

"By 1958, every war criminal who had not been executed would be free, and on December 30 of that year, all would be granted amnesty. Sugamo [the prison where so many endured a fate too cruel to imagine] would be torn down, and the epic ordeals of POWs in Japan would fade from the world's memory."

All those who caused untold suffering on American troops - savage beatings, starvation and dehydration, infliction of diseases sometimes for medical experimentation, outright torture and death - would be forgotten. Given the time - 1965 - it is quite possible Roger Sterling or his friends could have faced those across the conference room on the battlefield. Wasn't it so that America moved on as now it was expedient to use Japan as an ally, and Honda was a much needed account for the new firm?

Lest we think America has a clean conscience, Lillenbrand reminds us of quite the opposite. While she a bit bewilderingly didn't include the internment of innocent Japanese civilians in American camps, she does highlight this during Louis' youth:

"In the 1930s, America was infatuated with the pseudoscience of eugenics and its promise of strengthening the human race by culling the "unfit" from the gene pool. Along with the "feebleminded," insane, and criminal, those classified included women who had sex out of wedlock (considered a mental illness), orphans, the disabled, the poor, the homeless, epileptics, masturbators, the blind and deaf, alcoholics, and girls who whose genitals exceeded certain measurements. Some eugenicists advocated euthanasia, and in mental hospitals, this was quietly carried out on scores of people through "lethal neglect" or outright murder. At one Illinois mental hospital, new patients were doused with milk from cows infected with tuberculosis, in the belief that only the undesirable would perish. As many as four in ten of these patients died. A more popular tool of eugenics was forced sterilization, employed on a raft of lost souls who, through misbehavior or misfortune, fell into the hands of state governments. By 1930...California was enraptured with eugenics, and would ultimately sterilize some twenty thousand people."

Do you worry or wonder what could be happening in present times? Do you think history too easily forgets? While for Roger it might have been about forgiveness, I viewed it as about forgetfulness of our own history - so short in time as span, yet so quickly faded. We concern ourselves so much with the present and what's beneficial to just us - not looking forward at potential consequences, or to the past for lessons learned, and for perspective.

Cutting the Cord

After many long, loyal years together and much soul-searching, I've finally decided to end my long-term relationship - with my cable company. With a cable service, period.

I tried to make a clean break a year ago, but was lured back in with a year-long promotion rate, but with that ending, so did any desire to pay $700-plus a year. With my hard-earned (and limited) income, I'd rather give to companies that are more in tune with my values, like public radio. Cablevision doesn't come close.

It's not you, it's me.

Okay, honestly, it's mostly you. Television, in my opinion, is at the lowest standard I can remember ever seeing it, and yes, I mean all of those reality television shows. The Kardashians, really America? I don't think women fought through the rights movement to plunk themselves on the couch night after night to take pleasure at the dysfunction or vapidness of others, which seems to be the latest national pastime. People need all these high end television screens for that? These social climbing swindlers simply want to exploit their fame for profit.

I'm staging a television intervention and I'm looking at you, fellow Americans. I understand "guilty pleasure" - but is pleasure defined by Botox-riddled housewives so we can feel better about ourselves? Thinking about the time people spend watching them leaves me feeling worse.

Family sitcoms and programs - remember those, the ones parents could watch with their children without either being embarrassed by a line? My sister and I loved watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie and The Brady Bunch. Later, The Wonder Years was a cherished show. One of our beloved shows we always want to see - I Love Lucy. What are some of your favorites, and are you as disappointed as I am?

As I get older, I realize how truly fast time goes and how precious it is, and don't want to waste it on mindless television. Wynton Marsalis is so right - what a rich cultural heritage we have and I feel a better person having seen James Cagney and Ruby Keeler tap dance in Footlight Parade (from a library copy). My new favorite movie star: Dick Powell. I've also been reading far more often (the latest, Laura Hillenbrand's World War II epic, "Unbroken," which I believe should be taught in American schools).

One hiccup: reception is a major issue. All I ask is for the basic channels: CBS, ABC, NBC and Thirteen, and I'm struggling to get them. As my boyfriend likes to say, much like bottled water, they've sold the public on what they once got for free. But I'm not paying for a service - I can watch 60 Minutes or the nightly news online.

Cablevision - you and I are through.