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

  • Culminating a May month of recognition spanning the silly, the sublime and the sad, what does Memorial Day Weekend entail for you and the family?
  • Will you remember and recognize the debt due our war dead? While fallen first responders also had their day in May, do we properly include them in our remembrance tomorrow?
  • Have you done any research on the day?
  • If you delve into Memorial Day background and observance and share with friends and family, are all enriched?
  • Trying to be helpful, will googling the evergreen YouTube video “We are Americans–Air Force” refresh and aid your efforts?
  • To mark the day, will many gather at the flower strewn, Logan, Memorial ceremony in Chicago tomorrow morning at 1100 hours, recalling that over a quarter million people witnessed the 1897 statue dedication but just 250 came Memorial Day in 1997 to mark its centennial?
  • Should we sacrifice the interfering, long weekend and move Memorial Day back to the last day in May?
  • If we listen, can telling counsel be taken from the fallen?
  • Do we hear: “Having sailed and perished in the stormy seas of war, know we wanted more, but leave for you, the joyous struggle of being an exemplary American?”
  • Can feelings and fealty continue without continuing tribute? How can we disappoint except by not trying to live up to their words?
  • Now, considering reliance upon and fascination with the sea, do we recognize our great geographic friends that reinforce national advantage, the oceans, Atlantic and Pacific?
  • Do they, as promised last week, make 22 May, National Maritime Day, most relevant?
  • Established by Congress in 1933 to commemorate the steamship Savannah making a first Atlantic crossing from Savannah in 1819 (Congress in a rush again), does this particular national day also remind of responsibilities.
  • Have we neglected a needed maritime posture and inventory, military and civilian? Is there affordable solution?
  • Since inspiration and opportunity come like waves to the shore, should the immensity of the task, like the sea, draw us, make us our best selves, recognizing, now underway, that we must learn to navigate and sail in the stormy seas of life?
  • At the same time, is the reckoning for us Americans that, indeed, we are all in the same boat?
  • Are progress and tribute realized and recognized, by those rocking the boat or those rowing purposefully?

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