What to Read on Memorial Day Weekend

As always, here at Audere Magazine, we ask you to take a moment to think about the military men and women who gave their lives to let you have the freedom to grill your burgers in the backyard. Long ago, defending the country was the responsibility of all.

Here are a couple of Memorial Day articles, from these pages, which touch on that theme.

Steven S. Drachman asked us, back in 2019, to remember a couple of his ancestors who gave their lives in the Revolutionary War. It is startling to think that many soldiers have died for our freedoms and are not remembered today by a single soul. “This Memorial Day,” he wrote, “I’m remembering two ancestors of mine, who seem heroic and larger-than-life, but who are memorialized only in a little family history book, which I found with my grandmother’s possessions, after her death.”

Take a look, and pause a moment to think of Samuel Ward and Samuel Ward Jr., a father and son, both dead in an American War.

Our dearly departed old friend Alan N. Levy wrote a terrific reflection on Memorial Day shortly before his death, asking us to leave partisanship behind when we remember soldiers who died protecting us. “When Ronald Reagan was our president,” he wrote, “I was proud to be an American.  When Jimmy Carter sat in the Oval Office, I was proud to be an American. And whether our president was named Truman, Eisenhower, Clinton, Obama, or Trump, I have been proud to be an American.”

Have a good Memorial Day, friends.