Always no shortage of victims to memorialize, but why?

Memorial Day was made for reflection, no matter how crazy it might make you.

What I was thinking was how sports have positioned themselves as the backlines of war, assuming responsibility for morale back home.

For better or worse: Better if they place our Armed Forces in the mind’s eye, and worse if they merely provide a distraction from war.

Service members were honored in Major League Baseball ballparks over the weekend. Patriotic songs were sung. The Pittsburgh Pirates wore camouflage uniforms. Free tickets were given to active members of the military. Players thanked the troops. Moments of silence were observed for the fallen. Cheers greeted guests in uniform. Eagles flew high.

Next year we’ll do it all over again, and the year after, and the year after that. There will be no shortage of new victims to memorialize.

Monday, three more NATO troops died in Afghanistan, two when a helicopter crashed and another in an insurgent attack.

The death toll this year is at 172. Overall, nearly 6,500 U.S. service members have lost their lives in the Afghanistan and Iraq.

Meanwhile, more words are written, some of them by me, about Paul Konerko’s flirtation with a .400 batting average.

The Cubs’ losing streak provided fodder for sports-talk radio. How much to pay Matt Forte is another hot topic.

Then there is football’s ongoing concussion issue, so serious that it’s possible the game as we know it won’t exist much longer.

Considering our obsession with football, it’s conceivable that the NFL will initiate a movement to make Concussion Day a national holiday to honor fallen players.

If fear exists the concussion problem will end football as we know it, explain this: Why isn’t there as much hope that death will end war as we know it?

It’s almost taken for granted that there always will be a new batch of combat deaths to memorialize.

We’ll keep grilling burgers on Memorial Day, attending baseball games and going to work, school and the beach the next morning like nothing changed because nothing did.

All indications are that if it isn’t these wars it’ll be the next ones.

I understand the difference between football and war. The former is a luxury and the latter is a necessity.

Yet football is treated like a necessity, while the question remains whether war really is necessary.

It sure seems that it is, what with the way wars keep flaring up around the world.

Still, the notion must persist that if we put our minds to it we can find some other way — chess or golf or something — to settle disputes.

Recently on WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight,” former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley pointed out that world powers were measured by war in the 20th century but will be measured by economics in the 21st century.

Yet nations keep finding new places and reasons to fight their fights.

I’m babbling on here because it’s so frustrating that we continue to both commemorate Memorial Day and go to war, as if the two are exclusive of each other.

An athlete has a chance to recover from concussions because where there’s life there’s a will, and where there’s a will there’s a way.

However, the only cure for death is prevention.

I was thinking on Memorial Day that ending the madness of war would be a good start if only mankind could figure out how to.

mimrem@dailyherald.com