Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. This Sunday we target: Remembrance

  • Has Dekker’s “Merry Month of May”, so frolic, so gay, so green, become one solemn remembrance after another?
  • Do death, fire, crime, and war deserve and demand remembrance for all the human investment and costs involved?
  • Should America’s first responders, killed in the line of duty, be heralded and saluted with the same respect as our war dead?
  • Is that why this weekend is Firefighter Memorial Weekend?
  • With nearly 100 annual firefighter deaths over the last 50 years (plus the 340 lost at 9/11) is there proper remembrance given to the firefighters of America?
  • Is May 15th, Police Memorial Day, a day of solemn remembrance as Police week surrounds that date and Washington DC ceremony is held for our fallen cops (over 10,000 in the last 50 years)?
  • And then, after a bit of. research, do we thank Major General John A. Logan for Memorial Day, this year on Monday, 27 May?
  • Is it helpful to remember that Decoration/Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for our War Dead, is also a Day of Reconciliation?
  • At Arlington in 1868/69, were flowers strewn on the graves of Union and Confederate fallen alike?
  • Did parades over subsequent years feature Confederate and Union veterans walking hand in hand in recognition of mutual regard and respect?
  • Does that strange but wonderful camaraderie continue with contemporary enemy and allied combatants, veterans now, accepting one another, based on common experience, understanding and, certainly, remembrance?
  • Lessons for today, but never learned or well forgotten by pampered youth, agitators and activists who exploit and sow rancor and riot with American degradation, or worse, the goals?
  • Should it influence your vote? Should we change the eligibility to vote? To what and why?
  • Finally, is remembrance always very personal? Does it have to matter to you and the family?
  • Does remembrance, the sharing of grief, the understanding and worth of example and sacrifice, extend well beyond the fire fought, the crime solved, the war concluded and come home to good citizens who know and emulate, most often through and because of, love and faith?
  • Did I learn that lesson again last Friday in a magnificent, southside, Chicago church, and witness/feel, real remembrance with the thousand or more present, at the surely believed, non-final farewell to Doris T. Ford?
  • Wife and business partner of husband Eddie, mother of two daughters, dear and gracious friend to so many, she died in Eddie’s arms on their 65th wedding anniversary but has she merely gone on ahead to prepare a place?
  • Must we hold fast to deserved memorialization and remembrance as enriching and encouraging to our own future?

Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. The answers and actions are yours.