Photo by Patrick Robinson
Memorial Day is normally a time of gathering, of ceremony and the way we honor those who gave their lives in service to this nation. That can't happen this year and that's too bad.
It's important to understand what it means.
The United States only officially created Memorial Day as a holiday in 1971 but since 1973 when we ended the draft, we've had an all volunteer military. People choosing to defend us, putting their lives on the line.
It's easy to take it all for granted, to treat that kind of service as just another career choice.
That would be wrong.
Putting on that uniform means choosing to be part of a long tradition, to follow orders, to be willing to die for an idea.
The idea of freedom in America is and will always be the most basic and likely the highest human value. Without it people are oppressed, enslaved, subjugated, arrested, tortured and killed all because one person or group of people believes their world view is the only one.
So dying to protect freedom is an incredible sacrifice and a selfless kind of love.
When I was a young boy in school, they would give us all tiny red paper poppies and we would stand out on the lawn at Hazel Valley Elementary and recite a poem called Flander's Fields. I didn't understand what it meant to be honest. It was more of a way for adults to try to train us I guess.
But I understand it now. And so do all the children whose parents have died in the line of duty. And so do the spouses who lost a loved one. And so do all the family members whose brother, father, mother, sister, or friend are gone.
And now so do you.
In Flanders Fields
BY JOHN MCCRAE
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.
Oh how do you do, young Willy McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great falling in 1916
Well I hope you died quick
And I hope you died clean
Or Willy McBride, was it slow and obscene
Did they beat the drums slowly
Did they play the pipes lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
Chorus
The sun shining down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard that's still no mans land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned
Chorus
And I can't help but wonder oh Willy McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause
Did you really believe that this war would end wars
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again
Chorus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqba0IUdiBk
St. Pancras Station, August 1915
Vera Brittain - 1893-1970
One long, sweet kiss pressed close upon my lips,
One moment's rest on your swift-beating heart,
And all was over, for the hour had come
For us to part.
A sudden forward motion of the train,
The world grown dark although the sun still shone,
One last blurred look through aching tear-dimmed eyes—
And you were gone.
The Last Post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az7vnIf2nXs