Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday commemorates those who have fallen in military service for their countries. Many of you already know all of this.
These types of holidays used to be another day off for me. While I appreciated, in general, what those who had fallen had done for me, I didn’t really appreciate in a real meaningful way. Until I became a veteran myself.
(Sidebar: It still feels weird calling myself a veteran.)
Now holidays like this are a time not so much of remembrance, but of a reminding of the present. I remember what others in earlier times have sacrificed and what that means for the present, but more than anything it reminds me of the people on the frontlines today, and those who have fallen in the present.
It reminds me…
Of the urban kid who got out of the ghetto, become proud of himself and led others…
Of the farm girl who had never left her town before joining…
Of the new, young father who never had a chance to see his baby girl…
Of the college kid who joined for benefits that will never get to use them…
Of the mother who left her eighteen-month old son before he was weaned…
Of the parents whose set of kids all joined the same unit at the same time who came back on separate planes…
Of the many nieces and nephews who now where yellow for aunts and uncles that they used to play with…
Of the bank teller who joined for the excitement but who’ll never count money again…
Of the teachers, cops, firefighters, and EMTs that served our hometowns and our Nation…
Of the boys and girls who became men and women moments before their lives ended…
Of the retirees who joined again once the Twin Towers fell but who never got to retire for a second time…
Of the communities that sent their best and never got them back…
Of the families who get folded flags rather than hugs from their loved ones…
They deserve being remembered, not as the nameless masses and numbers on TV, but as the individuals that they were. They deserve much more than we’ll ever give them or the people in line behind them.
Regardless of whether you agree with the State of the Union, please remember those individual men and women who stand watch in faraway lands or who train and prepare to do the duty that our Nation has called them to do.
Fellow vet here Charlie, ’86 -’90. I was on a plane home with my discharge papers as Iraq was invading Kuwait. Literally. Very fortunate never to have seen combat.
The army kicked my ass. I got through it with an honorable discharge, but the structure of it all about made me go more insane than I already was.
It took me a long time to get perspective on it, and look at the experience in a positive light, each year the experience seems to serve me a little more.
I enjoyed you sharing your experience in the “Courage” post. Great stuff, to include this post as well.
MonkMojos last blog post..Observations of a Bus Driver: E Book Trilogy Preview
@ MoMo: First, thanks for your service.
It’s interesting the different effect that the military has on people – the structure doesn’t bother me at all (in fact, getting used to unstructured civilian life was the hardest thing to recover from when I came home), but it’s often the “don’t ask questions, stay in the box” mentality that gets me.
I’m glad that the experiences are providing value, even though they can be hard to deal with.
Thanks for opening up about your experiences.
I ended up in the army because I couldn’t cope with the structure of the civilian world. After the army, civilian structure seemed much easier. I am now starting to discover the freedoms some structures have to offer. I know, I’m a head case.
MonkMojos last blog post..The Psychedelic Stormtroopers of Personal Development