Memorial Day

IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
# 148

May 27, 2013

“Memorial Day”

May 27, 2013. Dawn creeps across the horizon on the east coast of America. Shadows fall, shading the lawns of uncounted cemeteries large and small, urban and rural, well kept or sadly overgrown. Those markers not only cast a shadow in terms of light, but also of conscience.

For every time we rise to check on a child or grandchild, to go to work, to breakfast with a mate in retirement years, to leave our homes to visit with the sick or serve our churches our freedom to do so rests in the hallowed ground of each and every one of our veterans’ graves.

For some, rest came after many years. Among the World War II generation, many clamber onto planes for an “Honor Flight” to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Yet, we lose more and more of them daily. Their numbers shrink and one day we will find that only a few remain. Few talk about their experiences and must be encouraged to make videotapes so that generations yet unborn will know a bit about them.

I believe that these men and women stay silent for basic reasons. They believe that they simply did their jobs. They do not see themselves as special people. They also do not want to relive the events that took lives of comrades within feet of them. They must have asked why they survived and so many others died. The bitter fruit of total victory is not total acceptance. How does one accept finality of that sort? I do not think it is possible.

Returning from the Pacific Theater and the European Theater of Operations, the injured and the physically unscathed walked into the arms of loving families. Those without families basked in the respect of friends and neighbors of their parents. Don’t forget how many young men lied about their age and enlisted below the age of 18. A number of Pearl Harbor survivors were only 17. They were just boys.

Boys in terms of bodies, but men in terms of patriotism and determination. My parents lost uncles and fathers in World War I. It was not, as termed, “the war to end all wars.” Oh, if it only had been.

Years passed and my parents lost their peers in World War II. One of my father’s friends was a pilot and went down on D-Day over the beaches of France during the largest invasion the world had ever seen.

More of my parents’ friends died in Korea. Our troops are still there, forming the only barrier to the insanity awash in the north where, incidentally, a night satellite photo shows only scattered lights. Their people live in the darkness of tyranny accompanying a lack of electricity.

More years passed. Then, my parents watched in anguish as folks their age lost children (my peers) in Vietnam. Mike DeBusk was just such a loss. He was a big guy and I’m sure a credit to the U.S. Marine Corps.

Wars morphed into hideous conflicts with no clear victory, only enforced peace at peril 24/7.

More years… Iraq invaded Kuwait and the United States, with the help of NATO, came to the aid of the small Middle Eastern oil kingdom. That said to be over, our military settled into an uneasy quasi-peace. Some saw the threat that would spread if Saddam Hussein were to remain in power, but troops cut short the march to Baghdad.

The twisted beliefs of Muslim radicals spread throughout the planet like weeds in a garden. Years passed.

September 11, 2001. Our world collapsed with the Twin Towers as Americans and foreigners alike lost family and friends in the first attack on our homeland since a small force landed on an Alaskan island during World War II.

For the first time since Pearl Harbor, a heinous, unprovoked attack on the United States prompted young men and older men alike to enlist in the military to defend their beloved country.

Once again, war robbed wives of husbands, husbands of wives, children of parents, parents of children, churches of worshippers, National Guard units of dedicated members.

Young men lost in war spark such emotion in those left behind, whether family or perfect strangers. Such deaths are such a waste. Who will ever know what those lives would have brought forth?

Yet, for so many others, death came with a bullet, a bomb, an ambush, in a foxhole, in a plane crash, a ship sinking, a submarine imploding deep beneath the sea, in forests, in deserts, and some in lands so inhospitable as to defy description to those who did not experience it. Still others met death in captivity, more often than not victims of horrendous torture and mental anguish. It is to these, both men and women, that we owe our allegiance, our respect and unending gratitude.

Unending? Yes. Unending. Their sacrifice has no end, for the end does not come with death. For those who had no chance to live out a long and happy life, we pledge that they will never be forgotten.

The Gold Star Mothers participate in projects that aid those who do come home, but injured badly. They lost their sons, but they will not abandon those soldiers who need their support. They honor their sons by their loving kindness to the wounded.

Wounded Warriors Project comes to the aid of the injured service member and helps family caregivers with incredible challenges. If you can, help them. While the press sets aside time on Memorial Day to mention the military men and women who died in the service of their country, I vow not to allow myself to think of them on only one day of the year.

To many of us, Memorial Day is a perpetual celebration of unimaginable sacrifice. We cannot bury the sacrifice with the dead. We must raise it as a mission that will not end.

As those shadows fall across our landscape in military or civilian cemeteries dating from the Revolutionary War to current conflicts and whether those shadows fall from stones marked with a Cross, a Star of David, or devoid of any faith designation, they are not a pall, they are a reminder that we all cast a shadow with our lives. Theirs is a shadow of conscience. Where is ours?

May our sense of conscience come out of the shadows and vow to make this a finer nation. We need more than lip service one day a year. We need steely resolve. Perpetual vigilance yields perpetual freedom — but freedom that comes at a high cost. Think about it.

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