Video Two: In Remembrance

[lesliemonster]

Good afternoon, everyone. For those of you hailing from different planets, today is a federal holiday in America called Memorial Day.

As Captain Rogers has already aptly mentioned, today we take the time to remember the sacrifices of our men and women in the armed forces. I suspect that is a sentiment that isn't limited to my country or planet alone. Those of you who would like to are welcome to join me on the deck at 7, for a small candle lighting ceremony and a moment of silence.

Thank you for your time.

Comments

[lesliemonster]

Because, thank goodness, there aren't any graveyards here to put flowers on.

[Leslie takes Narvin's questions at face value. He'll see her pull a book from her desk and open it to a dog-eared page.]

That's what happened on the first official Memorial Day, in 1868. Flowers were placed on the graves of soldiers from both the United and Confederate -- [Erm. Alien?] From both sides of a very, very bitter war. Five thousand volunteers came to Arlington National Cemetery and placed flowers on the graves of over twenty thousand men. You’ve got to understand, this was barely three years after the end of the Civil War. America was desperately looking for a way to heal, and we started to find it in the memory of our soldiers.

That’s not to say that we can’t honor men and women who have died for their country outside of the military – only that that's how the tradition got started.

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin's eye twitches very slightly at the phrase "Civil War." A tiny wince that he can't quite entirely suppress.]

I see.

And did it work to heal the damage? Well, obviously the country recovered eventually, I am aware of some Earth history, but did that, in particular, help?

[lesliemonster]

It was over two hundred years before I was born. But I do think that there is something to be said for healing in the shared experience of mourning.

[timesbureaucrat]

[Proper Time Lords don't share in the experience of being moved by an emotion. They repress them and try to convince their fellow Time Lords that they barely have feelings but if they did they certainly would never be moved by them and certainly not in public.

Maybe that's why after their civil war ended they just went back to the usual bickering and backstabbing and never really recovered.]

Did you lose anyone in a war, Miss Knope? [Pure curiosity now.]

[lesliemonster]

[That sounds like the Ron Swanson method of coping.]

Not in a war, no. But I work quite a bit with local veterans in Pawnee. I'm thinking about them, today.

[timesbureaucrat]

Then who or what are you mourning? Why is it meaningful to you?