Veterans Day Response

Veterans Day was quite special for me. It took so long to blog this because my life has been a whirlwind of activity. The response to the POW/MIA memorial was electric.

The memorial reached people because it was the reality of men who are still unaccounted for that became real in the hearts and souls of those who saw the memorial, and read the American Legions Commanders Message. It reached to people in ways I could scarcely imagine.

I heard from so many during the toast about their fathers, uncles, cousins, friends and the sacrifice they made in conflict areas from Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima in WWII to French Indo-China, to Wai, Khe Sahn, Da Nang and Saigon during Vietnam.

I heard the romantic story of Rita’s Dad who left a love in San Francisco to marry and live in New York. I heard of how a young man got sent back to Iraq on a third tour of duty only to die before his unborn son could see his face.

We live our lives wrapped up in the never ending soap opera that has become our lives. We worry about our jobs, money, family, our future, the course of our lives and what we can do to get by, to make the right decision to effect the best changes. We speak out against what we are for and what we are against. We carry arms to defend ourselves and our loved ones, we go out and vote out all the low and immoral failures that we elected in the first place.

We live our lives, enjoy or exercise our liberties and pursue the desire of our hearts and minds with all the strength we can steal.

That is possible because somewhere in the world a 17 year old buck private is walking a watch at an armory in the middle of Nowhere USA,

it’s possible because a 20 year old soldier is up in the middle of the night typing casualty reports for her unit somewhere in Afghanistan, possible because a 32 year old Gunnery Sergeant is still at it after pushing 16 hours, making sure his company can fight at the drop of a dime.

We pursue our happiness because a young Captain has figured out how to move his company 5 hours faster, saving time and lives. We have the right to bitch and moan because a Lt. Colonel is force marching his battalion in the wind and rain for deployment to where the fight is.

We have the comfort of knowing a little girl sleeps safely tonight because a young man in a place far away is braving blazing heat or bitter cold, under fire or under boredom to defend these rights.

There are over 1,380,082 people on active duty defending and serving in the United States Armed Forces around the world. There are currently 310,779,000 people populating the United States. This means that less than .5% of the United States population is defending the rights and privileges of the rest. If you factor in 23.7 million living Veterans of the United States Armed Forces the number changes to less than 7 percent of citizens having defended the rest.

No matter what your political beliefs or your position on conflicts past or present, you are the beneficiary of the most dynamic republic with the most personal freedoms in the history of humankind. No Veteran will brag about his service in terms of having kept you free, but we are proud to have served this magnificent country and been part of its living history.

If we, who serve do take some bragging rights, it’s not in ourselves, but in you. During the toast I witnessed your love for this country and your veneration for those who have given some of their lives and especially those who gave all of their lives for the United States of America. We, who are Veterans, are always humbled and honored for the love and respect of you.

Thank You All.

DC

Mortality: What Really Survives Us?

Now, now is the moment. This is the time to bring up my visit to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
I went there the week before Halloween with a couple of friends and took a lantern light tour of the Cemetery at night.

The shifting clouds of that moonlit evening had me thinking quite a bit about life, time and what’s worth living for.
Last night, Dot’tee broke the news that Tiny had died. It hit hard, I saw the man last week and he was up, around and moving, he greeted me with a firm, strong handshake and a hearty “how U doing?”

I always thought about those who died tragically, suddenly or mysteriously. I thought about their lives and how they lived. I thought about this because how we live will inevitably contribute greatly to the way we die. As humans we don’t just think about now, but about tomorrow and about yesterday. We constantly think about how things used to be with fondness, forgetting about the sacrifice of those who made our youth possible and created a future for us.

We often think about tomorrow with trepidation yet hope, believing that our hard work, our sweat and our sacrifice will be appreciated and remembered by those who survive us. The reality is the future has a way of forgetting the past unless there is something there to remind. That something to remind us could be as huge as a 100 story building or as small as a hatpin. That something can be an event written in stone or a story seared in our hearts and our minds.

We live a life primarily concerned with our own existence, our own comfort, our own goals and doing things our own way. We make a living, create assets, create wealth or create things that we want to inevitably survive us. We in some way want people to know that we were here and that we were with them. We think or at least hope that what we leave behind will be significant in some way important to us. Importance can be measured in different ways, from being remembered, to giving mankind your wealth, even your corpse for medical research.

I didn’t know Tiny very long. I know some people who did. Grief has a cycle, first we hurt, then we think about the family, mom, dad, brothers, sisters, extended family then we think about friends. Then we get together and share memories, have a funeral for our departed friend, family, or love. Then we go on living. That’s why Sleepy Hollow keeps coming back to my mind. I found out at Sleepy Hollow our lives and its message can survive the waves of time, the waves that wash away even memory and knowledge itself.

I saw every kind of tombstone, obelisk, statue, relief, inscriptions, symbols and mausoleums. The tour guide at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery told the story of the famous, the rich, the infamous and the righteous. The guide told of the rivalry between the Rockefellers and John Dustin Archbold, the story behind their huge mausoleums, even to the meaning of humble tombstones with Masonic, Greek and Biblical Symbols. But what was most striking was Sleepy Hollow itself.

Its gentle rolling landscape with hills and greenery, even under the light of the Hunters Moon wasn’t spooky or ghoulish but moving, inspirational yet haunting in an ethereal, peaceful and purposed way. Even the Pocantico River’s gentle flow echoes through Sleepy Hollow, somehow removing it from time. The night was cool but Sleepy Hollow was warm, I felt an assurance in this place I can’t adequately describe. (Even though one of the cemetery’s residents, a skunk did dissuade us from going in certain directions)

I thought about how I want to be remembered when I put off this mortality for an immortal existence. How would I want those who would survive me to feel, how would I want to be remembered as the decades and centuries pass and an ancestor or some school kid stumbled upon my name.

If they came upon the marker of my remains what could I possibly say as a reminder to them to live, love and persevere with all that is in you? I know, but words alone may not be enough.

Why should the dead care? Because all that lives will eventually die. As the late Bishop W.O.K. Gray once said, “You won’t get out of life alive! But the life you live can survive you.” The most regretful thing I worried about that night, before hearing about Tiny was losing a pool game that had been put on a platter for me to win.

After hearing about Tiny I thought about living without any more regrets. If we love, persevere and live with purpose maybe that can happen.

RJ