Memorial Day
Yesterday was Memorial Day. It's the holiday when we honor those who have died in service to our country. For me, this means thinking about my grandfathers. Neither did in service, but both were veterans of World War 2, and both have passed away. In particular, I thought a lot today about Grandpa Petry who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, among other places. He was wounded there, and while recuperating, he was assigned to watch over German prisoners as they worked to rebuild an airfield. According to stories I've heard, he took a broken cement mixer, and used a belt to attach it to a jeep so that the cement wouldn't have to be mixed by hand by the POW's anymore. Even when he was guarding enemy soldiers, he still used his own ingenuity to make things easier for them and to help them. He didn't let the fact that they were enemy soldiers blind him to the fact that they were also people.
He died when I was in 5th grade, and he'd had a stroke when I was still younger than Teddy is today that left him unable to speak. I never really got a chance to talk to him. So I wonder, what would he have thought about people in our country today that seem to be encouraged to single out those who are different and to attack them, to marginalize them, to dehumanize them. I wonder how similar he would have seen the hate mongering terrorist in Portland who murdered two people who stood up to him harassing a Muslim girl. Would he have compared them, mentally, to the people in Germany who allowed the propaganda of a few to encourage them to hate Jewish people? Would he wonder what it was that he was fighting for, if we allow that to become something that we don't all stand up to?
I have to think he would be righteously angry that anyone would be allowed to walk around in America, today, and to try to treat people like that. That's one of the many reasons why, as I raise my son, I want him to learn and to know that it's never OK to single someone out because they are different. As a kid who's growing up with a surgery scar down the middle of his chest, he's going to be different himself, I'm sure. I want him to make his great grandfathers proud by standing up for people that are treated badly just because their difference makes insecure and frankly stupid people feel worried that they aren't special.
He died when I was in 5th grade, and he'd had a stroke when I was still younger than Teddy is today that left him unable to speak. I never really got a chance to talk to him. So I wonder, what would he have thought about people in our country today that seem to be encouraged to single out those who are different and to attack them, to marginalize them, to dehumanize them. I wonder how similar he would have seen the hate mongering terrorist in Portland who murdered two people who stood up to him harassing a Muslim girl. Would he have compared them, mentally, to the people in Germany who allowed the propaganda of a few to encourage them to hate Jewish people? Would he wonder what it was that he was fighting for, if we allow that to become something that we don't all stand up to?
I have to think he would be righteously angry that anyone would be allowed to walk around in America, today, and to try to treat people like that. That's one of the many reasons why, as I raise my son, I want him to learn and to know that it's never OK to single someone out because they are different. As a kid who's growing up with a surgery scar down the middle of his chest, he's going to be different himself, I'm sure. I want him to make his great grandfathers proud by standing up for people that are treated badly just because their difference makes insecure and frankly stupid people feel worried that they aren't special.
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