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.
Taps – the final salute to a fallen comrade.
2 comments
My father is buried in the middle of people he *did* know — my mother’s family, which to a certain extent was the only family he ever had, given that his mother died when he was fairly young and his father was evil. (No, I’m not being harsh. His father was an evil little man). We didn’t send him to a national cemetery because my mother wants to be buried there in the family cemetery beside her father and mother — and beside him, even though she remarried when he died.
He served in the Navy during the Korean War just as his older half-brothers had served in the Navy during WW2 and his terminal rank was CS3, which was cook who was a duty cook (i.e. supervised a shift, basically the equivalent of a corporal in the Army). I had always thought he was a screwup when he was in the military but they didn’t hand out that rank to just anybody, especially not for someone in his first tour. They wanted him to re-up but he declined, he went off to work as a cook in civilian life and my mother was a waitress and then came baby…
My parents are now both in in that compartment at Arlington because my younger brother insisted on not just taking a boat out in the Gulf and spreading the ashes, or just putting them in the landfill. My parents weren’t really fans of the funeral industry. Too many of the people they knew had bought funeral insurance that turned out to be worthless after corporate takeovers of the local companies.
When I was in two of the hardest jobs to get rank in were the cooks and the military police. Your Dad did good. Navy chow was the best of the services. Napoleon was right – an army travels on its stomach.