Disrespect of A Memorial

[ashfire]

In the fire service we have memorials for Line Of Duty Deaths. We have one at our county fire services building which has the names of volunteer and career personnel from 1920 upto today. One member of my department name is on the memorial a young man who died of heart problem while in the station.
I was on our forum about our county and a member from another dept witnessed members of the Fire Explorers youth group climbing, playing and dancing on and around the memorial.
Has a older person he felt appalled that these young people who are learning to become part of the fire service would disrespect a sacred spot of those who gave their time and life to protect the citzens of our county.
It maybe a stone structure that may not be affected by what they did but I wonder what others would feel about this.

[Dante]

To young people, death is often the furthest subject from their minds and few do not understand the gravity of it's effects. As a consequence, unless they are very introspective, they often times don't recognize when something like this would be considered sacred. When ones deals with youth, one deals with immaturity, but often times simply from ignorance. But you have the opportunity to give them perspective by leading them, as your older colleague could have done. They need to be reminded of one another's mortality, reminded that one day the person they are dancing and playing with today could be on that plaque tomorrow. That is the memorial's lesson to them.

Even still, from another perspective, the memorial is a celebration of the lives of those firefighters in as much as it is a place to honor their deaths. So from the other perspective, these are the next generation of youth learning to become part of the fire service as you have noted, and so the memorial reminds us to celebrate their lives while that fragile thing called life is still given to us to celebrate. That is the memorial's lesson to us.

Then from a final perspective, this is a memorial for firefighters, those heroes who are there in the times when we don't know what to do to save our own lives. They are the guardians of life - and life includes dancing and sorrow. In one way or another who knows how many of these young people's lives are living today on account of the efforts of firefighters and their service. So to see these young people alive, which isn't to see them still and silent (the dead lay still for all time, the living move and play) is perhaps the greatest testament to their impact upon the world and memorial of their life's work. Life is their legacy, even in death. That is the memorial's knowledge to those who have gone and followed the path which it honors.

[bkilbour]

Well, disrespecting a monument is like saying you don't care about it, that you don't give a hoot about who did what for whom.

If the children didn't know what they were doing, don't get mad at them - if anything, it might be an opportunity to teach them all about the memorial and what it stands for; something good might come of it!

Also, Proverbs 23; 10-11 sheds a bit of light on it.

"Do not remove the ancient ladnmark, nor enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemeris mighty; He will plead their cause against you.

[Rusty Claymore]

Pascal has really good points.
Although I think it is a detriment to our society that we no longer understand what "sacred" is. There are some things that should be treated as "sacred" (lit. 'set apart'), and the masses have lost the ability to restrain themselves where appropriate. (Imho)
Yeah, we should celebrate the sacrifices of those honorable people, but we should do it with solempne, a word described by C.S. Lewis as, "Solemn, but celebrating... Like a graduation ceremony..."
I personally would be rather upset if people were climing the Viet Nam Memorial Wall as play.

[ashfire]

I posted on the fire dept forum that the people involve should clean the area of the memorial and they should learn about the names of those on the memorial and how they died.

[KeybladeWarrior]

Maybe just place a sign that says, "This memorial is not a playground".

[Nate]

As long as they're not peeing on it, or purposely trying to destroy it, I don't really see the problem. *shrug*

Then again I'm more of the kind of person who thinks that the memories of someone is more than enough, since any physical monuments are fleeting and will eventually fade away. I haven't been to my dad's grave ever since he died, nor do I really want to. The grave is nothing; it's pointless. My dad is in my heart. I remember him, and that's more of a memorial than any slab of rock will ever be, remembering the person he was and the things he did.

If someone sprayed graffiti on his grave, I wouldn't really care. It's just a thing. It has no value, no meaning. In a million years, it'll be eroded and gone. "My name is Ozymandias; look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair." All that is built will eventually decay.

So yeah. That's just my opinion.

[Tsukuyomi]

This may be a long stretch, but perhaps it was in a way for the children to celebrate all those who died? They may have been dancing to celebrate what they had done. I could be wrong, which would be no surprise xD