Remember, Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day. I had always focused on my personal perception that it was because we “decorated” the graves of those who gave their lives in military service to the country. Rolling into the holiday weekend, however, I interviewed gold star wife and head of the Major Brent Taylor Foundation, Jennie Taylor, for my KSLRadio Inside Sources program. She expanded my view.
As we closed out the conversation, this extraordinary patriot, mother and leader said, “Remember, decorate also means to add honor to.” She described how the military decorates, or adds honor to, a soldier with awards, medals or pins. She concluded, “We can celebrate, remember and pay respect to those who died — and that is wonderful. We add honor by how we live.”
It is up to us to add honor by the way we live — by living true to the principles for which they died.
Yes, the fallen brave gave, as Lincoln described, “The last full measure of devotion.” But as Jennie Taylor reminded me, “We cannot let it be the last full measure of devotion.” We can, and must, add to that devotion.
The current coronavirus pandemic has provided many moments of reflection and learning for people everywhere. Life’s greatest learning and grandest lessons are most often discovered in response to critical questions. The answer to such deep and penetrating questions can make a directional, and even destinational, difference for an individual, organization, community or country.
I appreciate those who can ask questions that require more than an immediate answer or surface-level response. The best questions echo and reverberate over time. Two such questions have been on my mind the past few months. The questions came from a Pope and a president. The Pope is BYU basketball coach Mark Pope. The president is Ronald Reagan.
Days after COVID-19 caused the cancellation of NCAA basketball’s March Madness, I interviewed coach Pope for my “Therefore, What?” podcast. The hard-charging, culture-creating, passion-inspiring first-year coach had led an unheralded team to the verge of BYU’s first NCAA tournament invitation in half a decade. And then, the dream of making it to basketball’s big dance was over, gone forever, in an instant.
I asked coach Pope what it was like to be the bearer of that devastating news, and I asked him what the lesson of the cancellation of the tournament would be for his team. His answer surprised me and has been echoing in my mind ever since.
Coach Pope said: “We always talk about how the game is just asking you one question. It’s always asking you one question. It asks this one question during the course of the game, after the game, after a win, after loss. All the game cares about is, how are you going to respond?
You go 0 for 5 shooting, how are you gonna respond on your sixth shot? You get two bad foul calls that you don’t agree with, how are you gonna respond right after that? You take a bad (loss), and the community has kind of lost faith in you, and everybody’s frustrated with you — all the game wants to know is how you’re gonna respond. They don’t care about how you feel about it. They want to know how you’re gonna respond. The game wants to know that.”
Coach Pope concluded, “And you can just as well insert life in there. Life doesn’t really care about how you’re feeling or what happened before. Life wants to know what is your answer to whatever you’ve just experienced, whether it was the greatest moment in your life or the worst. Whether it was the greatest victory or the toughest loss. How are you going to respond?”
How will we respond? It is more than just responding to the current pandemic. “How will we respond” really is the question for a lifetime of life’s challenges and experiences.
Lincoln asked how we, the living, would respond and add honor to the sacrifice of those who gave all.
The second question on my mind is one from 1982. In a stirring Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery, President Ronald Reagan spoke of that full measure of devotion and our obligation to add honor to it.
Said Reagan, “As we honor their memory today, let us pledge that their lives, their sacrifices, their valor shall be justified and remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation. And let us also pledge to do our utmost to carry out what must have been their wish.”
The president chose to end his address in a most interesting way. He reminded the audience at Arlington that they had begun the celebration that day by listening to the national anthem of the United States of America.
How will we answer life’s question, “How will you respond?” And, how will we answer the question if this land is still the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Then he punctuated his speech with a haunting question for the living. He said, “I can’t claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don’t know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: ‘Does that flag still wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?’
“That is what we must ask.”
Will we “add honor” to those who have gone before by how we live our lives today? How will we answer life’s question, “How will you respond?” And, how will we answer the question if this land is still the land of the free and the home of the brave?
These questions from a patriot, a pope and a president will continue to echo and reverberate in our lives and down through the ages. If we listen, reflect and respond to such questions the answers will shape our lives, forge our future and ultimately determine our destiny.