Editorial: Honor service with moment of silence
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the May 23, 2014, Seattle Times.
America’s gratitude to the men and women who gave their lives to protect our nation is genuine, though our emotional connection to Memorial Day has eroded.
Fewer and fewer people enlist and serve in the military, so the broad, common experience shared by earlier generations has frayed.
Here is a suggestion from The National Moment of Remembrance, which promotes a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to our country.
All Americans are urged to pause wherever they are at 3pm local time on Memorial Day to give thanks. A simple, elegant expression.
This Memorial Day is grabbing more headlines as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs draws fire over allegations that patients died while waiting for treatment. The number of VA hospitals under scrutiny has climbed from 10 to more than two dozen.