Memorial Day 2025 – living with moral shame

Hear ye, hear ye: all those who have ears, listen to a message from moderate conservative political commentator David Brooks:

“All my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a tremendous force for good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm – Vietnam, Iraq – it was because of our over-confidence and naivete, not because of evil intentions.

Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness — on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely — toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office– I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.”

David Brooks is not a writer I follow with fervor nor is he one I deliberately avoid as a conservative policy wonk; but in the May, 2025, issue of The Atlantic he wrote a piece called “Everything We Once Believed In” which captured feelings I’ve personally struggled to express since the November, 2024, election. As we remember the lives lost by those serving in the U.S. military at home and abroad on this Memorial Day weekend, I challenge us to also remember why they served.

Shame on us when we forget.