Memorial Day

“We sleep safe in our beds at night because rough men stand watch in the dark, ready to visit harm upon those who would injure us.” H.G. Wells

The weather man called for rain today, but the weather hadn’t bothered to listen to the forecast. It was sunny and warm with a smattering of clouds here and there to provide momentary shade. A constant breeze kept the heat in check and kept the flags waving. In fact, the first things I noticed at Kent-Forest Cemetery in Panama City, FL, were flags. Flags everywhere. There is a section of the cemetery known as the Garden of Honor and it is here that members of our armed forces are buried. A brick walk goes through the center of the Garden of Honor ending at a pedestal surrounded by a U.S. Flag and the flags of each of our armed services. There’s a large plaque on the pedestal that pays tribute to the war dead that surround that little circle of flags in the Garden of Honor.

This is Decoration Day, or so it was named in 1868 when the day was set aside at Arlington Cemetery, according to union General John Logan, “…for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” It wasn’t intended as a day of mourning so much as a day of remembrance and resolve that the blood shed in our defense would not be in vain. Today, this Garden of Honor was awash in a sea of flags. The Patriot Guard, a volunteer organization composed largely of bikers, stood at the perimeter of the ceremony holding large American Flags in honor of the fallen. Flags adorned each of the graves in the Garden of Honor. Veterans of every conflict since World War II were in attendance. Gold Star families (those who have lost loved ones in war) were there as well. Some vets wore their old uniforms out of respect, others the clothing of their organizations (American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled Veterans, etc.), and still others like yours truly wore hats with their medals and insignia pinned to the front.

As the ceremony began, with patriotic songs by local singers, my mind kept going back to another memorial. At Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, a memorial to those killed in the Khobar Towers attack was constructed. While deployed there, I visited that memorial regularly to pay my respect to my brothers and sisters that were killed and injured in the attack. Fathers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, comrades in arms. They were just like us, talking about what we would do once the “Freedom Bird” took us back to “the world” (home), what it would be like to see our kids again, our families, where we were going to take the family on vacation, etc. And then one day….a sudden, bone shattering concussion, and those people will never see their families again. For the military member, one bullet or one explosion and you’ve gone from Veterans Day to Memorial Day. Your dreams, your hopes, your plans, they all stop. To my dying day I will believe that it is harder on the families than anyone else. Today there was a section reserved for Gold Star families, a few of whom walked to the center of the Garden of Honor to see the plaque. The pain in their eyes told the story. To them, the sight of our flag, the sound of the National Anthem, the crack of gunfire as a 21-gun salute is rendered, the playing of Taps,…these all have an impact on these people that is so deep, so personal, it cuts to their very souls.

All of these thoughts were coming to the surface as the Honor Guard presented The Colors. The National Anthem was sung, and I along with other vets rendered a sharp salute. I can’t render a salute to our flag without remembering my brothers and sisters that didn’t come home. I can see the young man with over 100 pounds of gear on his back, sweat pouring, eyes squinting as he tries to figure out if that is a “friendly” or an “unfriendly” approaching him, knowing that his next decision will determine if he comes home or not, or if he is to be second guessed and court martialed. I think of my best friend Technical Sergeant Lee, another retiree, whose disabilities leave him on oxygen a good part of the time, unable to get about without the assistance of a cane, heart trouble, hands in braces, chronic pain, you name it, and he is not that much older than I. But the kicker is that Bob would do it all again in a heart beat for our country. Prior to one of my various deployments to the mid east, I spoke with Bob on the phone. In one of those “gut check” moments, he told me, “Dave, remember, you have to go. But you don’t have to come back.” This is the reality that stays with us, and leaves people like me moved to tears at ceremonies like today’s. Why did some of us make it while many of our betters didn’t?

The guest speaker at today’s ceremony was Mrs. Deborah Tanish, whose son, Sgt Patrick Tanish (US Army) was killed by a road side bomb in 2004. She spoke from the heart, but was also armed with facts. Did you know that less than 1 percent of the US population serves in the armed forces? That’s less than 1 percent defending the other 99+ percent. She told the story of a young corporal in Iraq who saw an Iraqi father and his daughter making their way back to their home. The young girl was carrying a heavy load on her back while her father carried nothing. This is antithetical to American culture where we simply will not treat our children as beasts of burden. So the corporal approached the father and told him that he would carry his daughter if the father would carry her load. The father agreed, and the corporal, already weighed down by over 100 pounds of gear, carried the young girl to her home. These are the kinds of people who stand between the rest of us and a large group of blood-thirsty lunatics who want nothing more than to kill as many of us as possible. So, you ask, what happened to that young corporal? He was later killed in combat in Iraq. Today we honor him and so many like him.

At the ceremony’s conclusion, the first volley of gunfire for the 21-gun salute startled a few people in the crowd. Then, from the side, the slow and mournful tones of Taps sounded. Veterans again saluted as a final show of respect to our fallen brothers and sisters. Just over the horizon, as the last notes of Taps played out, a four-ship formation of F-15s from nearby Tyndall Air Force Base approached the cemetery at low altitude. As the formation flew overhead, one of the fighter jets separated from the formation, pointing his jet straight up into the clouds and engaging the afterburners in a gigantic roar of tribute to the warrior spirit of our comrades killed in battle.

In the movie Saving Private Ryan, an old man visit’s the grave of the man who saved his life during the war and says, “I hope that at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.” Writing in National Review, Chairman of Vets for Freedom Pete Hegseth observed that, “The minute, excuse me—the second—we believe our freedom is ‘inevitable and/or immutable,’ we cease to live in history, and have soured the soldier's sacrifice. He died in the field, so we can enjoy this beautiful day (and weekend). Our freedoms—purchased on the battlefield—are indeed “worthy of war.” That is why, through the tears and the solemn respect, we pay homage to our fallen heroes. Today is a day for remembrance and for celebration. Celebration that such men and women exists. Celebration that our nation can produce such extraordinary people. And for me, looking down at the headstone of a young private who was killed at the age of 18 in World War I, celebration that I can refer to people in this generation of heroes as my friends.