Each year on Memorial Day, I dress the kids up in red, white and blue and we go to the Moultry Chapel Cemetery in West Township for the ceremony and service. One year I gave the speech. One year my dad gave the speech. This year my brother will give it.
Each year during the service they ask the people in the congregation to stand if they’ve served in the various wars that the Unites States has fought. There is still a man that stands for World War II. And each year it is just me that stands for the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Memorial Day is a challenging day for those that serve. You feel a mixture of emotions. Gratitude that it wasn’t your life taken on the battlefield. Sorrow because you know intimately the pain that Gold Star families have suffered. Guilt that your brother or sister in arms took the sacrifice. Honor that you served your country and the understanding that it is only by God’s grace that it isn’t you we are remembering today.
So, we share the stories of those lost in battle – whether we knew them or not. It is a hard reminder, but a necessary one. More and more service members today come from families that have served for generations. My father was in the Navy – both my brother and I followed his example. My husband’s cousin joined the Navy and he followed in his footsteps a few years later.
Two years ago, I was on an assignment for the Navy to interview hundreds of Sailors for articles in their hometown papers. The thing that struck me the most was the question, “Why did you decide to join?”
Roughly 75% of those Sailors I interviewed told me about family members who had served before them, and how they hoped to follow in their footsteps.
I saw a photo montage this week on Senator John McCain’s service in the Navy. The article showed photos of his father as an Admiral and his father before him. Generation after generation in service.
When my father spoke at the Moultry Chapel Memorial Day Ceremony two years ago, he told the story of 1stLt. Ashley White, who grew up not more than 10 minutes from my house. She was killed in Afghanistan, and I took the opportunity while here in the country to read the book “Ashley’s War” written about her service and ultimate sacrifice.
One of the things that stood out to me was her pure determination. When you hear the stories of those who’ve served in battle and many time lost their lives. There is always a thread that runs common through each story. There is a sense of rising beyond what you could imagine as humanly possible.
In Ashley’s story the author describes the training they endured before they headed over to Afghanistan. Rucksack marches and bleeding feet. Day after day they told themselves to keep going, keep giving.
Yesterday, I participated in a DANCON March. This is a march run by the Danish Contingent that was started in 1972 and has occurred all over the world. The concept is that you carry 22lbs of weight,
whether it is your flak vest with plates or a rucksack filled with weight, and then you walk 25 kilometers (16 miles). You have six hours to complete it.
I naively thought no big deal – a walk in the park and set out on that journey yesterday. The walk is a remembrance of all those brothers and sisters in arms that we have lost, and it raises money for veterans and wounded warriors. It was by far the hardest thing I’ve physically done, surpassing even the 100-mile bike ride.
Today my feet are covered in monstrous blisters, and I can’t help but think of Ashley and the fact that in their training they’d be out there doing another one today. You never know how much a human body can withstand, but you can be almost certain it is much more than your mind tells you it can.
As I nursed my feet yesterday, I scrolled through Facebook only to read this poem that a friend had posted:
Wilfred Owen was 24 when he wrote this poem in 1917, a year before he was killed in action. His book’s preface states, “This book is not about heroes….My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
So, on this Memorial Day, may I be so bold as to ask that you find someone, someone who gave their life for their nation and more likely for the friend next to them. For it is in remembering and talking about these people that their sacrifices are honored.
