Working on Memorial Day is just fine

I can’t remember the last time I didn’t work on Memorial Day. I work most holidays, for that matter. Some people think TV News is glamorous a job that allows you can do what you want, when you want. Heh, far from it.

But working on a holiday like Memorial Day actually isn’t a bad thing. It forces me to focus on the meaning of the actual day unlike if I were BBQ’ing, hitting the beach, sleeping, or whatever else ‘normal’ people do on this day. As sad as it sounds, it’s easy to forget the meaning of holidays. We all have such busy lives. We tend to maximize our free time on holidays to do the things we truly want (while pushing ‘work’ out of our minds completely). It’s healthy to put work out of your mind sometimes. It’s also easy to forget why we have the day off in the first place.

So on this Memorial Day I’d like to thank our Veterans for what they’ve sacrificed: free-time, family-time, bodies, minds and for many…their lives. It’s a sacrifice that allows us to enjoy what we have everyday: Freedom.

And we don’t thank them nearly enough.

I still hear people at the airport say ‘thank you for your service’ to servicemen and women in uniform. That is great, and needs to continue.

If you haven’t seen it, I posted my favorite television news story on this blog a few weeks ago. In the story, the man primarily interviewed was George J. Weiss, Jr. (US Marine Corps, Veterans of Foreign Wars). Weiss is the oldest, living member of the Friday Squad, an organization determined to provide full military grave site honors for veterans at Fort Snelling cemetery in Minnesota.

In the video, Weiss says:

For us, every day is Memorial Day.

He’s a veteran. But there’s no reason we all can’t feel and act the same way, working on Memorial Day or not.

Thank you, Veterans.