I spent Memorial Day at the Golden Gate National Cemetery, where my brother Andrew is buried. He was killed in action in Ramadi, Iraq in 2004, and I've been visiting his grave for over twenty years. I paid my respects and sat through the ceremony, then stayed afterward to talk with other Gold Star families who had come for the same reason. We told stories about the people we lost, and I told stories about Andrew and the friends I lost in Iraq. The whole point of the day, the actual reason Memorial Day exists, is to show up for the people who died and the families they left behind.
While I was at the cemetery, the incumbent congressman for this district, Kevin Mullin, was a few miles away at the Hillsborough Memorial Day parade. He was smiling and waving as he made his way down Floribunda Avenue. He posted about it on social media afterward, and in that same post he had the audacity to talk about Americans killed in war.
This is the same Kevin Mullin who has voted to send billions of dollars in weapons to Israel, weapons that have been used to fuel a genocide in Gaza and the war between Israel and Iran. War is what fills the graves at Golden Gate National Cemetery, and he votes to keep the weapons flowing only to turn around and post on Memorial Day about the cost of war as if he had nothing to do with it.
There is a stark contrast between us, and Memorial Day made that contrast plain. Memorial Day is the one day of the year that isn't supposed to be about politicians at all. It's about the people who died serving their country and the families they left behind, and the right way to spend it, if you have any reverence at all for what the day is, is to go where the families are and be quiet and present. You don't have to be a veteran or a Gold Star family member to do that. There's a national cemetery a short drive from anywhere in CA-15, and the families gathered there welcome anybody who comes with respect for what the day means.
Kevin Mullin doesn't get to claim Memorial Day, because when your vote helps fuel a genocide and a regional war, you forfeit the right to publicly mourn the dead, and that disqualification doesn't lift just because the cameras are out.