A day of immersion. Take an entire day from sunrise to sunset and wrap yourself in remembering, contemplating and anticipating. Insight after insight flows and may at any moment over whelm you. In this bittersweetness (horoniga) you experience wave after wave of sensations and feelings. Why do this? Because we vow, or pledge to honor someone by remembering when they died and on occasion why they died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial Day.
I can recall in the 1950’s celebrating Confederate memorial day, and May 10 is still celebrated in some southern states. The estimates of the number of men, and some women passing themselves off as men killed in this war is 620,000. My great aunt Suzie born in 1895 and lived to be 102, still remembered the destruction standing as relics of that war, and her two uncles who fought for the south. My dad was from upstate Maine and his ancestors fought for the Union. The estimate is that 2% of the entire population of north and south died. In the south that was 20% of the soldiers who fought. Begun in 1868 to recognize Union soldiers who died during the War, we now honor all who have fallen in defense of our country.
I received a second alternate appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1963. The primary appointee did go and I attended North Georgia College, Dahlonega, Georgia, a military college, founded in 1873. I later lost my commission into the Army because of a generic spinal disk condition. I was then drafted, went through another two days of medical examination and the first results were confirmed. I went on to graduate school and have had a good life.
Richard Gwinn was a friend and roommate at North Georgia College. Smart (particularly in math) and funny we would search out obscure facts to try and stump the other. He was an exceptional athlete and consummate soldier. Jeanette and I him before my finishing a year as a teaching assistant at North Georgia College in the summer of 1969. He then left for Vietnam:
1,200,000 Americans have died in all our wars since 1974. The why shifts and changes but we who are alive owe our lives to them. One day a year to remember what is for some, is an everyday experience for others as the void cannot be filled.
Palms together for loving kindness and peace,
Unshin Sangaku Dan Joslyn Sensei