By Sunny Fry
Most of them come home. Even in two bloody world wars, Vietnam and Korea, most of them came home. We celebrate their homecoming, tend to their healing, and go about our lives, mostly -- when we think about it -- simply celebrating the conclusion of any conflict, and that they came home.
But all of those who come home left first, and left knowing the very real possibility that they would be among those who didn't survive. And some of them don't come home.
At any battalion's homecoming, among the parents and wives and brothers and sisters cheering and waiting expectantly for their boys to get off the buses, there are a few wives and fathers and mothers who are there, whose sons have already come home in boxes. They're there, because the unit meant so much to their sons, and therefore to them. They're there to finish, in a sense, what they started when they last held their sons, kissed their cheeks, prayed, and offered words of courage and comfort. They're honoring those who served alongside their sons. Those families deserve to be there.
So the rest of us celebrate Memorial Day with flags and hot dogs and beer, at the beach or by the pool or on the golf course. We just live our lives. And that's how it should be -- those who go into harm's way do it so that we can have that freedom. But for some families, for some friends, Memorial Day is a time to remember their deeply personal cost for our way of life.
Years ago, I had an email forwarded to me from a battalion mother whose son had been lost the previous deployment. The anniversary of his death approached, and she was desperate that his sacrifice would be forgotten. I promised -- we all did -- to never forget her son. So I don't. I know his name, and the name of the other young men that battalion lost in Iraq, and I'll remember them, and their families, this weekend.
Have a marvelous time this holiday. Enjoy your family, your time, the sun and the celebration. That's what they fight for. But sometime in the middle of it, please take a moment to remember those who gave that last full measure, for exactly that reason.
The Republic will resume next Monday.
Recent Comments