Matthew lost his life on May 31, due to wounds suffered while serving in Iraq. On May 19, a sniper shot him during a door-to-door search for three missing members of his unit in the Sunni Triangle.
Matthew, a member of the 10th Mountain Division, received the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and an Army Commendation Medal. However, pretty ribbons and glistening medals are not satisfactory compensation for a life, for taking away a future and all that life could have been.
That’s what the medals are for, imbuing Americans with “pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war and promoting its continuance."
In the sense Americans like to think of Memorial Day, Mathew is the essence of a war hero. Matthew and all those who lost their lives in war gave all they had with courage and with nobility of purpose as they understood it to be.
It’s appropriate that a day is set aside to honor Mathew and those who gave their lives in service to our country. If families and friends take advantage of Memorial Day to get together with barbecues or other events, enjoy a parade, that’s appropriate too, as long as we remember why there is a Memorial Day and acknowledge the real loss that lies under all those graves decorated with pretty flowers and flags.
The reality is we are collectively responsible for the sacrifice Mathew and so many others made, and the sacrifices and heartbreaks of families and children because of the loss of a loved one, as well as those who brought horrific “shadows of battle back home.”
We need to remember that we are responsible for civilians and all those who lost their lives because of our wars. They too will have to live with their “shadows of battle.” And we should keep in mind the human cost in the aftermath of our wars: land mines and other unexploded ordinances that continue to kill and maim to this day.
However, there is no nobility of purpose when we allow our government, and those who make their living from war, to trade lives for power and profit. We allow our tax dollars to go for research, development, maintenance of our military, and deployment overseas, at the expense of advancing science, education, medicine, healthcare, and so many other needs right here at home.
As a result, we have failed at making the United States and our world a better place to live if only we had chosen a different way other than war.
As James Carroll wrote, “remembering is not enough. Beneath the beauty of the lilies lies the ugliness of war.” That’s what we should never forget and make best efforts to never let war happen again. James Carroll’s metaphor captures the deepest meaning of war, and of all the things lost because of it.
Copyright © Horatio Green 2017
