Commentary: It’s OK to shop the sales, but please take a moment to remember the fallen on Memorial Day

For the last week, my inbox has been flooded with Memorial Day sales announcements. From living room rugs to yoga, there are so many deals to be had.

Probably due to the sophisticated algorithms and the constant tracking of my search history, the internet is not wrong; I do, in fact, want to buy a new living room rug and get back into yoga. But I don’t need to do that this weekend. I don’t want to do that this weekend.

There is something so incongruous to me about those three words: Memorial Day sale. They signal just how far away we are as a culture from the intent of the day itself.

Memorial Day started, somewhat organically, in various towns across America to honor those killed in the Civil War. After the First World War, its intent was expanded to include all those who had died in America’s wars. Broadly, the day honors those who served who are no longer with us.

I hesitate to write about my friends and shipmates who have passed in the line of duty, lest I be accused of exploiting them for the sake of getting my name in the paper. Instead, I want to share a few statistics that I look up every year. I hope they will give you pause, as they do me.

We have lost 4,424 men and women in Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Department of Defense, and 2,350 in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

In 2017, there were 33 troops killed in war zones, according to the Pentagon.

Two of my classmates from the Naval Academy’s class of 2005 lost their lives in unrelated helicopter crashes. I sat next to one of them in aerodynamics class at the Academy. I sat next to the other in church.

Perhaps that is why honoring the day is so important to me — these are people I knew. But to many Americans, these wars are distant and difficult to relate to.

In the absence of a national draft, the number of Americans serving in the military has dramatically declined. In WWII, 9% of the population was active duty; that number is now less than half a percent.

Speaking of the Greatest Generation, according to the National WWII Museum, we lose 372 veterans of that war every day. My grandparents, both WWII Navy veterans, passed several years ago, taking their stories with them. My grandmother was a WAVE, the naval reserve for women, and I was proud that the Veterans Administration added her rank to her gravestone, just like my grandfather’s, when she was buried. She was a yeoman, petty officer 3rd class.

And that’s the point. You don’t have to visit a cemetery this weekend or participate in Memorial Day activities. You don’t even have to deny yourself that new living room rug.

All I ask is that before you click on that email, you take a second to remember those who have gone before. I ask that you quietly thank all of those brave men and women who were called to serve something greater themselves and did so with dignity and without regard to their personal safety.

I know I will.

ANDREA MARR is a Naval Academy graduate and former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. She is a Costa Mesa resident and City Council candidate.