Live free and say thanks

Memorial Day in North Carolina isn’t for mourning. It’s for remembering why we get to enjoy days like this.

May 26, 2025

Like a lot of you, I’ve long struggled with what to say on Memorial Day. “Happy” doesn’t feel quite right. We’re honoring fallen soldiers, after all.

But last week’s Do Politics Better podcast interview with state Rep. Grant Campbell made me think differently. Campbell served as a trauma surgeon in Iraq and now represents Cabarrus and Rowan counties in the General Assembly.

He put it bluntly:

“I don’t want you to shed a tear on Memorial Day. I don’t want anyone to shed a tear. I don’t want you to feel sad. I want you to have a great day, and I want you to have it with your loved ones. Go swimming, have that cookout, have that margarita. Have a hell of a time. At some point in that day, just look to the sky and say thank you.
“I don’t want it to be a collective national boo-hoo. Those guys didn’t die for you to spend a day crying. They died for you to have a day of freedom and family and fellowship, and hopefully gratitude and recognition of it.”

Later today, I’m taking my kids to the pool. We’ll probably grill out. They’ll run around without a care in the world — and that’s exactly the point.

One of the hardest things to teach children is gratitude. Mine are little, and they have a good life. It’s hard to explain to them that the freedoms they enjoy without realizing it didn’t just happen. They were bought and paid for by people who never got to come home.

So maybe today isn’t about saying the perfect thing. Maybe it’s about recognizing the simple fact that we get to live in this beautiful, free, imperfect state — and remembering the North Carolinians who made that possible.

At some point today, I’ll do just what Rep. Campbell said: I’ll look up and say thank you. I hope you will, too.

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