Another Memorial Day

[Stinky The Clown]

I won't start with some stupid platitude about picnics or the start of 'the summer season'. Memorial Day is something special. It is about them. Those who went to stand up for the country they loved, or at least for the country that asked them to stand. I won't categorize by motivation. That would dishonor all of them. Some volunteered. Some were drafted. None wanted to make the ultimate sacrfice.

But they did.

Who am I to question why they served. They did. And that's all I need to know.

They stood for something. But more than that. They wanted something, too. They wanted a life. They wanted wives or husbands or life partners. Kids. And Mom and Dad. They wanted a house and a job and a vacation.

They got Memorial Day.

And that's where I'll be on Memorial Day. It is the day for them. Not for me or for you or for anything about today. It is for them and for then. For what was, not for what is.

To be sure there are the obvious lessons one can take from Memorial Day. But even those lessons, aren't they simply a look back? To what was. To what happened. And to why. It is about them and about then.

Every Memorial Day there are more of them. In most years, only a few more. Was there ever a Memorial Day when there were none? For the past few years there have been more 'more of them'.

Some of them were your father or son, your brother or sister, your mother. And mine. I can see how I might have been one of them. I can't even bear the thought of one of them being my children. I can't bear that thought.

And that's my lesson for today.

I can't bear the thought that one of next year's more would be one of mine.

And that keeps me going. It replaces any weariness with anger and determination.

I can't bear the thought that one of them next year will be one of mine.

Or one of yours.

Rest in peace, brothers and sisters. We've learned your lesson well.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Yes, rest in peace

Rest in peace, all the Guardsmen in my area who have been killed in Iraq; and rest also for their brothers in arms who, despite having PTSD nightmares and NO psychological treatment, are being sent back to hell....

Bush and Cheney-open your hearts. Feel, just for an instant, the pain and suffering you have caused, and then tell me-can you rest in peace?

[Stinky The Clown]

2. I thought about including a reference to the

'walking dead' .... some whom have been so sentenced since they returned from Viet Nam. They're still here. You'll find them under the interstate overpass. They'll be among the old ones, in their sixties, two lifetimes when one is among the walking dead.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Wonderful piece ...

Thanks for posting it.

I grew up with a complete understanding of what Memorial Day was supposed to be about, and in my naivety, I assumed the rest of the world, or at least the country, held the same tradition. I was in my teens before the truth hit me fully, and it was a shocking realization, especially when I learned that those most hungry for war and death and killing were the most likely to be spending their memorial day in a private pool surrounded by people serving them the day's feast. They celebrate death with gluttony.

I'm resting tomorrow. The day after I make the annual trek to various cemeteries across the state to lay flowers and to say a few words, to commune with the remaining family about those who have gone before us. At one of these resting sites is plot of ground occupied by what was a man, and on his tombstone are the simple words, "Born 1948, Francis, Oklahoma. Died 1971, Vietnam." Born in one, very small world, died in another. When I was child, I noticed no one ever left flowers on his simple grave. I adopted him when I was a teenager. I have a flag waiting to be placed near his headstone, as I do every year, before I visit the graves of my grandparents, g-grandparents, and g-g-grandparents. I cry for him and for the thousands that have gone in his wake.

:patriot:

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Roy, that's a very special thing you're doing

One man to another. Quietly.

Thanks for sharing that.

[HawkerHurricane]

5. I spent my morning today...

at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetary, with the Cub Scouts... we put little flags by all the headstones of veterans, all 70,000 odd of them.

Most of the kids did not understand... but some of the older veterans who were there did.

There is a monument at the cemetary, which has the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. I read them, and almost wept...

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Ya did good with the cubbies

They'll remember their day. Bet on it. They may have been ... well ... boys being boys. But they sensed the mood of the adults.

They'll remember.

[calimary]

7. My boy and I did that, too, at the VA cemetery here in L.A.

Not quite as big a turnout this year, for some reason, although plenty of Scouts to do the flag placement.

Every year since the start of the Iraq war, the temperature on these things has turned down a little. It went from rah-rah-rah war and lockstep crap, to something a little more human. Speakers through the years were starting to mention the ANTI-war faction (and not dismissively, either), how not every war had support, and how important it was to appreciate the sacrifice. One speaker last year even acknowledged that part of what these Americans fought - and died - for was our right to dissent.

Not this year, though. Sheesh. From the VA department representative of president george w. bush (who read this sappy statement filled with sentiments that I knew the asshole-in-chief neither wrote, nor read, nor felt) to some older Eagle Scout actually back from Iraq who might as well have been handing out enlistment forms. His speech was full of military recruitment talk and pushing the fact that our military is its smallest and isn't it a shame that more of us haven't served and experienced the military way. My son fidgeted and complained under his breath throughout - that he didn't want to be there because he didn't believe in this stuff, and he didn't believe the lies and he didn't believe in the war and that he felt strongarmed to sign up. I think he may soon drop out of the Boy Scouts entirely because of stuff like this. It's a shame, really, because his grades aren't great and Eagle Scouts have an edge in college applications, and he's spent a lot of years going through Scouting. I couldn't disagree with him, either. I was offended by that VA creep. I kept wondering how much they'd just finished cutting from the VA's budget, and here they are out there with their phony God-bless-the-USA smarm. I actually turned around with my back to him while he was speaking. The pleasant surprise came from the mumblings of other parents around me, from our troop, about how shitty it was that - if you disagreed with the president, you were labeled unpatriotic. There are a few parents who have the aura of ex-hippies in our troop. They noticed it, too.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Hug your son

He sounds like a great kid.

And don't worry so much about the grades. Good kids always do okay.

[HawkerHurricane]

9. No such problem here.

Guy from the VFW gave a speech, was very much in the 'honor their sacrifice' mode...
No recruiter. Cub Scouts are too young (13? would be the oldest), and most of the parents were active duty or vets or spouses... try to recruit there, and you're likely to get heckled by guys who KNOW what lies the recruiter tells...

[madfloridian]

10. Front page of the DNC is moving and touching today.

http://www.democrats.org/



Our Troops and the American People Deserve More Than Bush's Regrets

Tonight my hubby got tears in his eyes, and he said he would never forgive about this war. He is a Korean veteran, one of our sons is ex-Navy, and a brother was a Naval commander.

Some things are not going to be forgiven easily.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Just wars and unjust wars

are based on the leadership - just and unjust.

Those who stand and those who fall are all to be honored.

Today is for those who fell.

[wildeyed]

12. Very nice.

k&r

[kineneb]

13. In honor of my late Uncle Vern, a Pearl Harbor Survivor

Thank you for your service. I miss you.

To Great-great grandpa, Union Army, wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, Thank you for your service.