My appreciation for Memorial Day has evolved as I’ve aged; the long lens of aging puts events on a timeline on which you measure “before” and “after.” As a tween, Memorial Day was the unofficial start of summer — for fans of 99X (98.7 WXLO, New York), it was the 99 days of summer lasting until Labor Day when the flip flops gave way to marching band overshoes. In my Princeton undergraduate years, it was sadly another day, often with final exams, as the academic calendar run into early June; Princeton shortened the year and Reunions have landed on Memorial Day weekend for the past two decades.
Our junior year, our ground level room framing the Henry-1903 courtyard entrance had a brass star affixed under one window. The stars commemorate a fellow Tiger, usually one who lived in that room, who was killed in one of the World Wars, Korea or Vietnam. (Ed note: In researching this piece I discovered the stars were placed by the Society of the Claw, of whom one of my close classmates and WPRB alum is now a member). We tended not to think much of those small memorials, passed daily on buildings ranging from dorms to current academic offices. Memorials to Princeton students killed in action dot the campus from Revolutionary War names in Nassau Hall to the George Segal scultpure of the binding of Isaac done as a memorial for the students killed at Kent State in 1970. (Ed note two: the longer piece linked is as much about the Segal sculpture as it is about my Freehold Township High School classmate Steve Voight, killed in action as a member of Seal Team 8. I have written about Steve’s passion for life, friends who carry his memory for three decades, and his outsized personality in previous years).
Early on Saturday morning, alumnae Maria Ressa and Sonia Sotomayor gave talks to thousands of graduates about freedoms and justice and liberty; to that lecture hall’s west stand Abraham and Isaac outside the chapel, and to the south, closer to Nassau Hall is a memorial to Princetonians killed on 9/11, including my classmate Karen Klitzman. As is done in Israel, I include victims of terrorism in my personal Memorial Day remembrances.
Near the centroid of that triangle, near the transept of the Princeton Chapel and at the head of the wall bearing names to those killed in service to our country, I found this battle scarred flag from the 4th USS Princeton. Designated CVL-23, USS Princeton was a a light aircraft carrier built in Camden and sponsored by the wife of then-Princeton President Dodd. It was damaged in a dive bombing attack during the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines, and scuttled after colliding with two ships that came to its rescue. I had never noticed it, despite dozens of campus tours and multiple events in the chapel, and now it is part of my Reunions canon song.
Aging has continuous re-baselines that way in which you reckon time; it’s time before and time until, our current era looking both ways. That is the point of calling graduations “commencements;” our 1984 Princeton commencement is halfway between the loss of the USS Princeton and today; Steve Voight is revered in memory as long as he was loved in life. The point of divinding time into epochs is exhort us not to wait: we can sense the impact and import of events long after they have passed, but the call to action — to be the defender — is clarion and immediate. Lectures and books introduce ideas and discussion; bravery, courage and fearless defense of our colors are the long indelible marks on our timeline from which we measure.
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