Memorial Day
This is a picture from one of the columbariums at the Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of many of those who served the United States since the middle of the 19th century.
That is my Father’s marker. He didn’t know those located around his marker, but they all shared service to their country as part of their life.
The country continues to ask for service and people still respond to that call. As you think about the sacrifices represented by Arlington and other cemeteries, ask yourself if you have done what you could to prevent misuse of the willingness of some to serve.
It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation 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.
7 comments
I don’t have a photo of my own father’s headstone. He was Navy, served during the Korean War. His headstone is in a small family graveyard in Louisiana, many thousands of miles away, and on the day that my brother and I set his headstone in concrete it was dark and gloomy and my cheap 35mm camera could not cope with those conditions. I had flown there from Arizona for Remembrance Day (what we celebrated in the South back then), a year after his death, the VA had sent his headstone to my mother and we took it to the cemetery and installed it.
Perhaps it’s for the best that I don’t have a photo of his gravestone. He was not an easy man, and my mother was much happier with my stepdad. Still, some days it bothers me. Not enough to drive 4,000 miles to take a photo though.
Bryan, my thanks to your father, and to you, and to all those who served and who serve today. Day to day, military service is bound to be a thankless task. I remember my Father saying that there is nothing glorious about war, even when it is necessary; he was proud of his service in W.W.II, but took no joy in the fact that it had to be done.
Unchangeable aspects of human nature ensure that war will be done again and again. We can only hope that we have presidents as little inclined to wars of political advantage as possible, and hope for a return to the notion that Congress shall have the power. Until then, our young men and women will be vulnerable, and our nation’s resources will be diverted from constructive enterprises to destructive ones.
Again, my thanks for your service.
Badtux, my great grandfather, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion, is buried at Chalmette National Cemetery near New Orleans. He was working on Mississippi barges when the TB finally got him in New Orleans. I should visit, but I don’t travel much any more.
The tradition in New York, where people called it Decoration Day, was to visit the cemetery and spruce up family graves. Now families are spread out all over the country, and that doesn’t happen.
Steve, serving is a family tradition, so thanks aren’t necessary. Your Dad and Uncle served because they felt it was right. The war in Southeast Asia wasn’t the focus of my service, the Cold War was. I wouldn’t have stayed in for a second tour if I had been too involved with SEA. I don’t like being lied to, and when you work in intel you know when they are lying.
The current attitude of attacking other countries because you don’t like their government has to stop. There are a lot of people around the world who don’t like the current way the US is being governed. If we attended to our own problems, it is very possible that other people would stop trying to do something about us.
The Cold War was decidedly a cause worth serving because the alternative was World War 3 and probably the end of life on Earth. You have my thanks, Bryan, for helping keep the world from blowing up in an epidemic of mushroom clouds.
Decoration Day. That’s the term I was looking for. We didn’t celebrate it on the same weekend as Memorial Day all the time, it was always the fourth Saturday of May, and in years like 2010 that had five Saturdays in May, that meant it was a week before Memorial Day. But my brother lost his sight and my mother got old and I moved far away and the elderly aunts and uncles who organized potlucks and such for those who came from far distances died or faded away and it just sort of died out for our branch of the family. The last time I visited the graveyard was when we set my father’s stone, a flat marker that gave his date of birth, date of death, and said he was USN during the Korean War. The next time we visit will likely be when we inter my mother’s cremains, whenever she dies. It’s roughly a four day production for me to get me and my brother there and back to our respective homes, so it just doesn’t work unless it’s something major.
Seems like a lot of things have died out these past twenty years. Call me a cranky old coot, but some of the things that have died out, maybe were worth keeping. Just a feeling…
To be honest there were days when I didn’t know who was the bigger threat – the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces or the Strategic Air Command. Jack T. Ripper isn’t much of a stretch in character development for several people at SAC headquarters when I was stationed at Offutt.
Decoration Day was a good thing. It gave people a sense of family history and roots, which are dying out today.
The Soviet side had similar characters. There were some of them who wanted to go ahead and let loose the nuclear missiles when it became clear that their coup against Gorbachev had failed and that the Soviet Union was basically over, pretty much saying “we’re done, let’s take the U.S. with us.” Luckily there were enough sane people left on that side to rein them in. In the end that’s what it took on both sides — enough sane people to look at the intelligence gathered by people like you and realize that nuclear war was literally insane.
After I had access to the real numbers on nuclear weapons, the Cuban Missile Crisis got a hell of lot scarier. Then they threw in the effect of surface detonation which threw dust into the upper atmosphere, and the effect that would have on climate, i.e. nuclear winter. We have seen the same type of thing after massive volcanic eruptions, like Krakatoa which has been estimated as a 200 megaton explosion.
It’s a tough sell convincing people that what they consider to be the ultimate tool in their box can’t be used. Fortunately enough people figured that out, but I want to retire and dismantle to the point that we can’t destroy the planet if someone gets really stupid.