Memorial Day was meant as a somber day of mourning for the war dead and reflection about the horrors and costs of war.
The annual Jones Beach extravaganza, co-hosted by Newsday, uses flashy, flying weapons of war to “celebrate” a day meant for mourning.
Why is this continued every year? For profits? To glorify war machines, hoping we don’t realize that these sleek fighters and bombers are meant for killing?
It seems extremely perverse for the official, joyous opening of summer to be a day when we should all, instead, reflect on the terrible loss of life wars have always inflicted.
How about a true Memorial Day commemoration, not a “celebration”, during which we remember the hundreds of millions of dead and maimed and their still-suffering families who were, and still are, victims of the scourge of war, and during which we resolve, seriously and with true dedication, to do all that we can to eradicate the human blight of war forever?
Ed Ciaccio
Douglaston
Member of the Board of Directors of the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives
