{"id":355,"date":"2009-05-25T14:42:59","date_gmt":"2009-05-25T14:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html"},"modified":"2009-05-25T14:42:59","modified_gmt":"2009-05-25T14:42:59","slug":"memorial-day-those-left-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Day: those left behind, and those who return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Memorial Day is one of tose holidays in which sometimes the real significance gets lost in the formality. It&#8217;s important to honor the sacrifices made by our armed services personnel for our sakes, though not just one day out of the year. In a sense, setting aside this day almost ensures we take them for granted the other 364.<\/p>\n<p>There is a group we do take for granted, however, every day (and today most of all) &#8211; the families. The sacrifice of a soldier in terms of their time, and risk, and sometimes their lives, are all done with a sense of duty. The family they leave behind has only pride to balance out the fear &#8211; two emotions both derived from love.<\/p>\n<p>Further, those troops who return to us are also often forgotten, once out of physical harm&#8217;s way. They bear the burden of their service &#8211; a burden that doesn&#8217;t get the recognition it should. What is needed is more focus on those who lived than those who died.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, it should be noted that the ultimate sacrifice of our uniformed personnel, which is the central focus of Memorial Day, should give us pause, for it places a heavy responsibility upon us. Naturally our troops are eager to go where duty demands and serve, because they are doing it for us. But they are indeed precious to us for that reason, and thus we have the duty to them to ensure that we do not send them to war for any reason less than absolute necessity.<\/p>\n<p>I have close friends of my own who are serving in the Marines and the Army today and I pray for their health and safe return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Memorial Day is one of tose holidays in which sometimes the real significance gets lost in the formality. It&#8217;s important to honor the sacrifices made by our armed services personnel for our sakes, though not just one day out of the year. In a sense, setting aside this day almost ensures we take them for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[291,26],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purple-politics","tag-memorial-day","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Memorial Day: those left behind, and those who return - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Memorial Day: those left behind, and those who return - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Memorial Day is one of tose holidays in which sometimes the real significance gets lost in the formality. It&#8217;s important to honor the sacrifices made by our armed services personnel for our sakes, though not just one day out of the year. In a sense, setting aside this day almost ensures we take them for&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-25T14:42:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Memorial Day: those left behind, and those who return - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Memorial Day: those left behind, and those who return - City of Brass","og_description":"Memorial Day is one of tose holidays in which sometimes the real significance gets lost in the formality. 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In a sense, setting aside this day almost ensures we take them for&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-05-25T14:42:59+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html","name":"Memorial Day: those left behind, and those who return - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-05-25T14:42:59+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-25T14:42:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/05\/memorial-day-those-left-behind.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Memorial Day: those left behind, and those who return"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}