# Do Confederate soldiers count for Memorial Day? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 28, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568 "2013-05-28T18:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/321 "2013-06-01T02:06:03Z")
This isn’t Veteran’s Day, which is about honoring soldiers. This is Memorial Day, which is about honoring your dead relatives. If you and your family lived in the South, some of those dead family members will have been Confederate soldiers. Yeah, I know how the holiday started. So what? Do any of you just put flowers on the graves of military people? Who cares about a law that doesn’t have anything to do with how anyone celebrates the holiday? What is with everyone acting like Memorial Day is (still) a military holiday? EDIT: If I were to view it as a military holiday, this thread would make me honor them, just out of spite for all the hatred in this place. I think I actually now understand the whole Southern pride thing. Seriously, some of the crap said in this thread makes me sick. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/322 "2013-06-01T02:13:51Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > But grown-ass adults have got a choice, and if your choice is to face execution or fight on behalf of slavery, I won’t say that you’re obligated to choose martyrdom, but if you don’t, I do think you need to live with the guilt, and certainly shouldn’t be honored for privileging your own life over the lives of slaves. When you are in that position and you choose death before dishonor, I will respect your opinion on the matter. Until that happens to you, and I hope it never does, I really don’t think you should be so quick to decide who should go on with their lives and who should spend every moment plagued by guilt that can never be lifted in order to make people who will be born long after they die feel morally superior. Nobody can really judge the guilt, but as with most American wars, the degree of PTSD seems to have been rather massive on both sides (though it was known by other names). At the reunions the former soldiers certainly didn’t seem to have any abiding hatred for each other (the 1913 [Pickett’s Charge reenactment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt7qvuHSg6U) is a famously touching moment), and I respect their opinions on the matter more than I do the opinions of anybody living. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/323 "2013-06-01T02:17:58Z")
Continuing to hate someone after they are dead and can’t hurt anyone anymore is a sign of extreme irrationality that I didn’t expect to see on this board of all places. And, yes, that includes fucking rapists. They’re not rapists anymore. I get some people saying not to honor them. That’s fine. But I didn’t expect **Der Trihs** ’s opinion (which I already knew) to be the moderate one. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568/324 "2013-06-01T02:25:19Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > When you are in that position and you choose death before dishonor, I will respect your opinion on the matter. Until that happens to you, and I hope it never does, I really don’t think you should be so quick to decide who should go on with their lives and who should spend every moment plagued by guilt that can never be lifted in order to make people who will be born long after they die feel morally superior. Again with your idea that it’s all about making me feel morally superior. That’s unfair: if we’re discussing what “should” be done, we’re discussing morality, and if we’re discussing morality, we need to be able to say what we think should be done. It’s a cheap shot to say people who disagree with you are trying to pat themselves on the back. For example, I never said I’d choose death before immorality (not dishonor, that’s your word not mine). I said it’d be a really hard choice, and I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to choose to die rather than choosing to fight on behalf of slavery. But if I didn’t make that choice, then I ought to feel guilty about what I did choose, because I’d have chosen a deeply, deeply immoral thing to do, in order to preserve my own life. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-confederate-soldiers-count-for-memorial-day/659568.md?page=16)