There will be no live programming on Chief on Monday, May 26, 2025 in observance of Memorial Day.
Coffee, Inside The Gamecocks The Morning Show and Inside The Gamecocks The Show will return on Tuesday, May 27.
We would like to wish all of you out there a safe and happy holiday.
The Weight of Memory: Memorial Day in America
In the sultry haze of late May, when the air hangs heavy with the scent of magnolia and the promise of summer, America pauses to observe Memorial Day—a ritual as solemn as a churchyard hymn, yet as vibrant as the flags that flutter above the graves. One might see this day as a fragile tapestry, woven from the threads of sacrifice, sorrow, and the enduring ache of remembrance. It is a day when the heart of the nation beats slow, burdened by the ghosts of those who fell, their names whispered in the rustle of leaves or the crackle of a distant parade.
Memorial Day is no mere holiday, no frivolous escape into the arms of leisure. It is a reckoning, a confrontation with the cost of liberty, where we stand before the tombstones of soldiers—boys and men, women too, who traded breath for duty, who surrendered their tomorrows to secure our own. In the small towns of the south, where the river murmurs secrets to the willows, or in the shadowed cities where skyscrapers loom like silent sentinels, we gather to honor them. Their absence is a wound, a quiet agony that lingers in the breast of every patriot who understands the price of freedom.
This day demands we look upon the fragility of peace, as delicate as a moth’s wing, and recognize the blood that stains its roots. From Gettysburg’s scarred fields to the distant sands of foreign wars, the fallen are the architects of our present, their lives the currency of our nation’s endurance. To forget them is to betray the very soul of America—a betrayal as cruel as turning from a lover’s plea. We decorate their graves with flowers, not to mask the grief, but to confess it, to say, “We see you, we feel you, we carry you still.”
In the tender cruelty of memory, Memorial Day binds us to those who perished, their stories flickering like candlelight in the dusk of our collective conscience. It is a day to weep, to pray, to promise that their sacrifice will not dissolve into the haze of indifference. For in their silence, they speak loudest, urging us to live with courage, to cherish the fragile gift of freedom, and to hold fast to the hope they died for.
America, the beautiful. God shed his grace on thee.
