Monday, May 28, is Memorial Day, which means a three-day weekend for most of us. So millions of Americans will head for the shopping malls or the recreation spots, or else gather around the barbecue pit in the back yard.

And they should.

The men who died for this country died as much for the American dream of a better life, materially, for themselves and their children, as for our rights, liberties and independence.

So we should enjoy our prosperity on Memorial Day. But we should also remember the men who died to make it possible, and make some gesture, however small, to show our appreciation. Otherwise, our free and affluent lifestyle is … well, playwright Arthur Miller once put it a lot better than I ever could.

Shortly after World War II, Miller wrote a tragedy of awesome power called, All My Sons. In the play, a young returning veteran named Chris Keller tells the girl he plans to marry about his experience in the war. He was a company commander, and nearly all his men were wiped out. In a moving speech, he describes their sacrifice, and his own feelings as to what that sacrifice ought to mean to the folks back home –- but doesn’t:

They didn’t die; they killed themselves for each other. I mean that exactly; a little more selfish and they’d’ve been here today. And I got an idea –- watching them go down. Everything was being destroyed, see, but it seemed to me that one new thing was made. A kind of … responsibility. Man for man. You understand me?—To show that, to bring that on to the earth again like some kind of monument and everyone would feel it standing there, behind him, and it would make a difference to him. [Pause] And then I came home and it was incredible. I … there was no meaning in it here; the whole thing to them was a kind of a –- bus accident. I went to work with Dad, and that rat-race again. I felt … what you said … ashamed somehow. Because nobody was changed at all. It seemed to make suckers out of a lot of guys. I felt wrong to be alive, to open the bank-book, to drive the new car, to see the new refrigerator. I mean you can take those things out of a war, but when you drive that car you’ve got to know that it came out of the love a man can have for a man, you’ve got to be a little better because of that. Otherwise what you have is really loot, and there’s blood on it.

So, on this coming Memorial Day weekend, drive the new car, see the new refrigerator and enjoy American way. But take a moment to remember the men who died to give it to us, and do something in return: help a disadvantaged child learn to read, volunteer at a homeless shelter, give some time at a veterans’ hospital –- do something to make America a little more just, a little more kind, a little more responsible. Do something, in short, to make this country a little better –- a little more worthy of the men who died for it.

Otherwise, what we have is really loot -- and there's blood on it.