PUBLIC HOLIDAYS HAVE CONTESTED MEANINGS.

It is fitting and proper in a constitutional republic that we do so.  Therefore, I'm not going to get too worked up over Campus Reform trolling collegians with a petition to abolish Memorial Day.  "One man condemned Memorial Day as a celebration of American Imperialism before even having seen the petition."  The interlocutor was the expected scruffy hippie type.  The intellectual argument might have purchase in other sorts of intellectual circles, whether of the skeptical-of-nation-building school or the Mind Your Own Business school, which might also sail under the banner of America First.  No imperialism, or no nation building, or no overseas interventions for whatever reason, fewer bodies coming home on transport aircraft.  Indeed, in DeKalb, the local interfaith advocates for peace and justice (if your understanding of those words is consistent with George Orwell's, you've pegged them) carry photographs of the recent war dead in the Memorial Day parade.  It is fitting and proper that they do so.

It's more troubling that people, possibly including the students Campus Reform found, don't understand the meaning of the day.  "But what is even more troubling is the fact that several students that were interviewed acknowledged that they were not aware of why America celebrate the holiday in the first place. However, some did understand that the holiday was intended to honor those who gave their lives for the United States and still believed that the country should do away with Memorial Day."

In part, the ignorance stems from the existence of two public holidays with similar and overlapping purposes.  DeKalb restored the morning ceremony, without the parade, the school bands, the interfaith portrait chain, and with socially distanced seating.  The observation traditionally makes use of a joint task force, which is to say all the local veterans' organizations, e.g. American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and for all I know there are still a few members of the Societe 40 et 8. 

Strictly speaking, Memorial Day began, after the Civil War, as Decoration Day, which was May 30, no matter which day of the week that fell upon, and it became a tradition for people to decorate the graves of their ancestors as well as the Civil War dead.  Memorial Day was codified ... Washington standardization again, as the final Monday of May, and thus the beginning-of-summer long weekend that trips up politician and entertainer alike took its current form.  In November, what we currently understand as Veterans Day (it's an adjective, not a possessive) emerged out of Armistice Day, and it retains its November 11 date honoring the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month when the War to End All Wars ended.  In the British Commonwealth, that day is currently Remembrance Day, there being an encore to that War to End All Wars, and there's more of the tribute to the dead in that nomenclature, thus their Remembrance Day has more of a Memorial Day atmosphere to it.

An observer, though, might, upon observing the same sort of joint task force providing the honor guard, the bugler, the three volleys both in May and in November, perceive a similar purpose to either day, and wonder, why have both?  It's also difficult to distinguish "war dead" from "veteran" in identifying who to memorialize, what with people returning to civilian life after being exposed to nuclear weapon tests, or Agent Orange, or the smoke from those weapons dumps set afire in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the nightmares that recur no matter how pleasant the home life or the day job might be.  Thus more than a little advocacy for veterans' benefits might find its way into the Memorial Day speechifying.

We might, however, add to Red State's Jeff Charles's worries about collegians not being aware of the origins of the holidays, the possibility that the organizers of and attendees at Memorial Day events also are reinforcing their prior beliefs, and doing some polarizing of their own.  On Monday, one of the speakers in DeKalb, and then Milwaukee Brewer broadcaster and Army veteran Bob Uecker, both recited the "It is the veteran" (it also appears as Charles Province's  "It is the Soldier") including the provocative "It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us freedom to protest."

In our citizens' republic, yes, by fighting soldiers in the service of other governments, or, more recently, non-state actors, who would like to abridge those First Amendment rights.

How many times must I tell you, dear reader, that emergence is messy?