AMERICANS TOO OFTEN FORGET TO REMEMBER OUR FALLEN HEROES.

Byline: James Bemis Commentary

For Judy Mills Taber, Memorial Day has nothing to do with three-day weekends, backyard barbecues or the beginning of summer.

It's about remembering.

At the recent ceremony to raise a new POW-MIA flag at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Taber spoke movingly about her brother, Navy Lt. Cmdr. James Mills, missing since his fighter plane vanished Sept. 21, 1966.

After 32 years, his memory still burns brightly for his younger sister.

``This flag is a comfort to me and my family,'' said Taber, western states coordinator for the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. ``It serves as a poignant reminder of the obligation we have to those who protect our freedom.''

Taber and others like her do a great service by reminding us of war's stark reality. It's especially important this Memorial Day weekend, when - in the crush of picnics, softball games and end-of-the-year school festivities - it's all too easy to forget what we're supposed to be commemorating.

Formerly called Decoration Day, Memorial Day was established in 1868 by Gen. John A. Logan, commander of the Union Army. It was meant, Logan said, to be a day for ``strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.''

So on May 30 of each year (later changed to the last Monday in May), he proposed that our nation ``gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest of flowers of springtime, and let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor.''

Despite Logan's good intentions, I suspect few people visit the grave of a veteran on this holiday to remember and give thanks. Even fewer attend parades or other public events commemorating the fallen members of our armed forces.

Maybe it's a sign of our times, but it surely doesn't reflect well on us that such an important and solemn occasion is now so lightly regarded. Most people can't seem to spare the time to honor freedom's defenders, who died in places like Shiloh and Antietam, Normandy and Iwo Jima, Khe Sanh and Pleiku. Don't bother trying to go to a movie that day, though, because theaters likely will be packed - it's one of Hollywood's biggest weekends.

Ironically, our complacency toward the military stems from its very success. National defense is no longer much on our minds. Communism is everywhere fleeing in failure and disgrace, the big bad Russian bear no longer threatens, and China presently poses no armed danger - due, in large part, to our seemingly invincible combat forces. Our nation's borders never seemed more secure.

But this is even more reason for us - not threatened by invasion or conflict, no nuclear sword of Damocles dangling over our heads - to reflect upon why the abundant fruits of freedom are available.

In great measure, it's because many Americans answered their nation's call to duty on behalf of their compatriots - past, present and future - asking that they now repay their forefathers' sacrifices with those of their own. To their credit, they responded. To our shame, we've forgotten.

Logan knew how quickly the losses of war could pass from memory and so proposed a national day of remembrance. ``If other eyes should grow dull and other hands slack and other hearts cold in solemn trust,'' he said, ``ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remains in us.''

Our eyes will never grow dull, nor our hands slack, nor our hearts cold, if people like Judy Mills Taber have anything to say about it. As she well knows, we may no longer be able to thank our dead heroes, but it's never too late to remember them.