My father served in the U.S. Army in Italy. My mother served as a lieutenant in the WAVES, the Navy’s women’s reserve, stationed stateside. Both came home. Memorial Day is not for them. It is for the Americans who did not return, who died defending the democracy my parents’ generation came home to build. On Memorial Day, I think of what they all fought for, in uniform abroad and in uniform at home, and of what is being taken from us now.

My parents’ generation understood something we seem to have forgotten: democracy is not inevitable. It must be defended. The least we owe the Americans who died for it is to look honestly at what they died for, and at what is being taken from us now.

Democracy is not inevitable. It must be defended.

Democracy is not inevitable. It must be defended.

When Franklin Roosevelt rallied Americans during World War II, he did so with a simple truth: democracy was the best possible government. And when soldiers from every background defeated fascism together, they came home believing they had secured that promise forever.

My mother-in-law Edna was eight years old when she escaped the Warsaw Ghetto and survived on the Aryan side, passing as a Polish Catholic child. At nine, she joined the Polish Home Army as a courier, becoming its youngest decorated soldier. She spent her childhood dodging bullets and watching neighbors and family disappear because a government had decided some people were less than human.

She survived the most extreme ramifications of a murderous fascist dictator. We, as Americans, promised ourselves: never again.

I don’t think most people truly understand what democracy is. It’s........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)