Davison's Doodle

Memorial

Another Memorial Day.  I pause to remember former youth group members, all adults now, a second cousin, and a friend in ministry that have all,  at one time or another since 2002, been in Iraq or Afghanistan either on the ground or in the airspace.  They have all come home alive, but in remembering these I also recall the memory of a silent airplane last year.  A flight from Atlanta to Tulsa.  A Marine was returning home to his family, flag draped and escorted, by another Marine.  In Atlanta military volunteers saluted as his body was loaded on the plane, the last to go into the luggage compartment.  Passengers were then allowed to board.  In Tulsa, the escort did a quick change in the plane bathroom and emerged in a dress uniform.  People did not move when we arrived at the gate.  Few cell phones were turned on and only whispered voices were heard asking others to please be quiet.  I could see out the window across the plane.  A hearse, with flags, and more military personnel approached the plane.  A flight attendant announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats and observe a moment of silence as we honor the service of this fallen soldier.”  It was a moment that lasted and lasted.  It was at least 10 minutes.  The captain echoed the flight attendant, “Ladies and Gentlemen, my thanks on behalf of the entire crew for your silence and respect.  We are cleared to deplane.” Few spoke as we left the plane, walked the jet bridge and scattered into the terminal.

Memorial Day Weekend is called the official start of the summer.  Many swimming pools will open and there will be sales, flags, and speeches.  That is all well and good, but if you have a moment visit a military cemetery and walk the land.  Listen, read the headstones and then see if any of what we do feels appropriate.  Yes, it can be argued that many have died protecting our freedom to splash, travel, shop, and consume, but is that a fitting memorial?  Is that freedom?   “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in a myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.  That is real freedom.”(1)

I believe that the many that gave their lives in battles did so for the people serving next to them.  Some may have coupled this with freedom or the idea that our Nation can be a light shining on a hill.  I come to this belief after having talked to many that came home, burdened by what they saw and how they survived, thankful to be home without the aid of an escort or a letter delivered to family on their behalf.  Ours is a Nation that has practiced grace filled moments and shame filled moments both accidental and intentional.  Let us, this Memorial Day, remember the fallen of this decade of death, poverty, and multinational greed by lobbying congress for accountability through the rule of law rather than rhetoric.  Those that breached the public trust and human decency, no matter their station in life, must be held accountable if our Nation is to move beyond the civic grief that has driven policy, economic and foreign, to embrace a future worthy of the children who were birthed during this first decade of the 21st century, honor the dead, and the living.

So now, I turn to watching the HBO film, “Taking Chance”.  It is one way to understand the humanity of our wars and see a bit of a final journey that I witnessed in silence from inside an airplane.

Note
1) David Foster Wallace, This Is Water, p. 102-21.