2008 - Forty Years On

Observed Memorial Day, 2008, was the day on which there were bugles, flags, fly-overs, and poems. I told a bit of Brian Tierney’s story, representative of many others who have served and died. Today is the traditional date of Memorial Day.

On May 30, 1868, Gen. John Logan, Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (the GAR was the post-Civil War American Legion) designated a special day "for the purpose of strewing flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the latest rebellion."

When I was a boy in a small Minnesota town, a few members of our National Guard artillery battery, some Legion and VFW veterans, and the high school band, marched out to the cemetery. There a long roster of the community’s dead in the great wars, the ones with the numerals was read – and a few names from the very recent Korean Conflict – a volley was fired, and taps were played. A poem that had been written – according to lore – in the trenches of World War I by Canadian colonel John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields,” was solemnly read to the gathering of Scandinavian and German merchants and farmers who made up most of our small town.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

On the plains of western Minnesota there was no fly-over, and most of the marchers had already acquired the paunches of middle age, but those spring days, the rifle volleys, and taps, in a small town cemetery had a powerful effect on a small boy.

That boy didn’t notice – then – that it wasn’t just the graves of veterans that got flowers, and over which those stolid citizens prayed, but those of mothers, wives, sisters, fathers, and brothers. Most having nothing to do with military valor.

He’s no small boy anymore, he’s learned so much. So, after paying tribute on the observed holiday and on this traditional Memorial Day date to those who died in the service of our country – in the service of us all – he offers his love to those others he misses so deeply.

Lost family, friends. You’re in my heart. Dad, you were tired those last years. I didn’t understand. I do now.

Jeannie, I miss you most of all. The hurt is so recent, so deep, it's so hard to express the longing. In our few years together, I came to see all of the world from the perspective of “we,” not “me.” We shared everything; favorite places, people, all the things we did together...everything. You’re with me every day. Since you’ve gone, you’d be surprised how many friends suffered a similar loss. It helps they’ve shared that with me.

Now, in 2008, Memorial Day comes to mean so much more – is about more loved ones – than that small boy ever imagined. I guess it’s good there are two of them – Memorial Days, that is.