Feeling Naïve on Memorial Day

I honestly can't tell anymore.

(Grave of 2LT Emily Perez at West Point Cemetery)

---

I’m writing this on the morning of Memorial Day and fewer than 48 hours after Donald Trump delivered the commencement address to West Point’s newest class of young Army officers and their families.

I’ve been struggling mightily over the past two days with the question of what is and isn’t appropriate to say on an occasion that’s meant to be dedicated to remembering the women and men in uniform who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

Memorial Day shouldn’t be observed through a partisan prism. In fact, ideally, politics of any variety shouldn’t be discussed today. The focus should solely be on those who came home in flag-draped caskets and their loved ones.

That used to be an easy ask, the lowest of bars, common sense and basic decency and respect and all the necessary reflection. It didn’t matter your political party or ideology; it was simply expected we all set aside our differences and honor those lost.

But that was before Donald Trump. That was before we got social media screeching on Memorial Day like the toddler pablum that was posted this morning, just a few hours ago.

That was before a sitting president would use an occasion honoring new West Point graduates to engage in an hour of public, narcissistic masturbation before promptly leaving without shaking the hand of each new graduate, as had been the tradition for every president who delivered the commencement address at West Point — that is: until 48 hours ago.

That was before a sitting president would call American war dead “losers” and “suckers” and before a sitting president would opt to play in a golf tournament instead of receiving dead service members at Dover and before a sitting president would repeatedly—bizarrely—get in public fights with the parents of dead service members and before a presidential candidate’s campaign staff would assault a cemetery official at Arlington just doing her job and before a presidential candidate would mock a former prisoner-of-war for being captured and before a presidential candidate would downplay the importance of the Medal of Honor and before a sitting president would slander the honorable service of a general officer for not being sufficiently deferential and before a sitting president would move to drastically slash funding and support for veterans and before a sitting president would inexplicably and cruelly order the unjust removal of thousands of honorable and highly qualified service members solely because they’re transgender.

There was, believe it or not, I promise you, a time before all that — when our military and our veterans—but especially those who died in service to the rest of us—could reliably count on their commander-in-chief to demonstrate the bare minimum of respect for their service.

I wish today didn’t need to be partisan, and truth be told—if you’re generous enough to offer me a charitable reading on all this—everything I’m writing here doesn’t need to be partisan if we can all agree, as all reasonable adults should, regardless of political party, that the coward currently occupying the Oval Office expresses a disgusting degree of disrespect for our military that transcends broad political disagreement.

Or maybe not. Maybe that’s naïve. I honestly can’t tell anymore.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the late U.S. Army Lieutenant Emily Perez, West Point Class of 2005.

She’s the first Latina and Black woman military officer to die in combat in U.S. history.

At West Point, Lt. Perez was a standout, head-and-shoulders above her peers. She’s also the first Latina and Black woman to serve as Cadet Brigade Command Sergeant Major.

“Perfection” is technically impossible, and yet, to be selected for Cadet Brigade Command Sergeant Major, you practically have to be perfect. These are invariably the Rhodes Scholars, the future four-star generals, the individual shapers of history.

In her time at West Point, Lt. Perez defined the concept of leadership in her class — her peers, her instructors, the underclassmen she led: all have said this.

It’s phenomenal for anyone, but for a Latina and Black woman in a mostly white male environment? Beyond remarkable.

Folks openly spoke of Lt. Perez in her short lifetime as the first Latina and Black woman president. Such was her reputation and potential.

Fifteen months after she graduated, Lt. Perez was killed-in-action in Iraq by an IED. She was awarded the Bronze Star. She was 23. Shortly after her death, her story appeared on the front page of The Washington Post, where I—then a 19 year-old Army private—read it by chance one morning.

Her story had an enormous impact on me. Reading about Lt. Perez in that period of my life inspired me to 1) reenlist a few years later and 2) apply to West Point.

In my time at West Point, I would meet “Old Grads” — folks who had long commissioned out of the Academy and then mentored us young cadets. Again and again, I would meet women, particularly women of color, who were Old Grads and had some kind of connection to Lt. Perez.

It’s fascinating to me that this leader whom I’d never met—whom most Americans don’t know—could have such a direct impact on countless people, including me.

The Trump administration apparently doesn’t think so. Government webpages and other online content featuring the story of Lt. Perez have been widely removed or archived or rendered inaccessible in the months since he took office.

The erasure of Lt. Perez is part of a much larger project to remove stories of women, Black Americans, Americans of color generally, and LGBTQ people who served our country in uniform but whose specific recognition is, apparently, a profound source of discomfort for Trump and his administration.

No, I certainly wish today could be solely focused on those women and men who gave their all for the United States, not the childish antics of a coward who assiduously avoided military service.

I wish the defining tone for today would be following in the footsteps of the formerly enslaved who organized what is widely considered the first Memorial Day observation in Charleston, South Carolina in 1865 (though it wasn’t yet called “Memorial Day”).

Thousands of newly-freed Black Americans reburied Union Army dead who had perished in captivity at the Confederate prison camp there and honored their collective sacrifice with a parade.

I wish today were bereft of politics and filled to the brim with gratitude.

I wish I didn’t have to write any of this, and I wish I could adequately articulate how painful it feels to do so.

Maybe such wishing really is naïve. I honestly can’t tell anymore.

---