Tequila Sunrise. <\/em>We had the grown kids over for smoked ribs last night, and with our amazing Margarita machine (three pitchers at once!) made a lot of good drink to go with the good food. Thank goodness the dogs were mindful of the evening \u2013 they didn\u2019t get up until seven this morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s Memorial Day, and for the first time in a very long time, I actually felt like calling Mom and Dad. I do think about them a lot, but it\u2019s not often that I just feel like picking up the phone and talking to them. Mom passed away in 2011, Dad in 2016, so it\u2019s really not possible to make the call. But we talked a lot throughout their lives, often by phone, and always on Sundays and holidays. So there\u2019s that \u201cmotor memory\u201d of connecting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You didn\u2019t call before nine. By nine they were both up, at the table, drinking coffee. Before nine they\u2019d answer the phone, but they weren\u2019t really ready for a conversation. We could talk about almost anything; Mom and Dad were always involved in the world. This morning\u2019s conversation would have been about school shootings and politics. Mom would be happy that I retired; she always worried that something would happen at my school and I might get hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Memories<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
And we would have talked about Memorial Day. It was always a day of remembrance for them. Mom and Dad both served in World War II, it was the seminal event in their lives. Not only did the offer up their lives for their country, but they met, fell in love, and married all in the crucible of world conflict. Memorial Day is not Veterans Day; it\u2019s a time to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice in their service. But Mom and Dad lost lots of friends in their War, \u201cthe War\u201d as they would say. Memorial Day took them back to those times. For them, like Dickens, it was \u201c\u2026The best of times, it was the worst of times\u201d. There was nothing worse than the losses, but there was nothing more involving, energizing, and intense than their war experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTheir War\u201d ended a whole lifetime ago, seventy-seven years. Since then there have been American wars in Korea and Vietnam, Panama, the Balkans, Kuwait, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. We have asked our military to defend our national interest, and they have. And there has been political turmoil about many of those wars, turmoil that has sometimes spilled over onto those just doing their duty. It isn\u2019t that every war the US has fought was \u201crighteous\u201d, but that\u2019s not the fault of those soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice on all those foreign fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So on Memorial Day, we should remember those who sacrificed in all of those wars, whether we were in favor of them or not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are two memories, \u201cstories\u201d I would share on this Memorial Day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Small Town Boy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The first is about my early teaching years living in the small town of Pataskala. As a teacher I\u2019d hear the kids talking about the \u201cscary old guy\u201d who would walk the streets of the town, talking to himself. The kids didn\u2019t know what to do, and made up all sorts of tales about him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found out the real story. He had been a kid, just like them, in 1943 in the middle of World War II. He graduated from high school and went into the Navy to serve his country. And he was on board a ship when it got torpedoed in the Pacific. We don\u2019t know exactly what happened on that ship, but we can imagine the terror of flames and explosions. Eventually the order was given to abandon ship, and that young man, hardly a year out of high school, went into the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hours later he was pulled from the waves, physically undamaged. But sometime in the crisis, from the chaos on deck and into the water, he lost his mind. It turned inside itself, and he was never the same. High school kids sign up for the military, and they know the risks. They might die in combat, or come home injured or even disfigured. But they don\u2019t think about losing themselves out there in the battle. But that\u2019s what happened to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He lived with family here in town, and every morning he\u2019d walk the streets, talking to himself. The local restaurants knew his story, and he had a free coffee or breakfast whenever he stopped. He was our little town\u2019s \u201cmemorial\u201d to the ultimate sacrifices of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A New Monument<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
And the second is about Mom and Dad. It was around 2007, and they had not visited the new World War II monument in Washington. So we loaded up in my Suburban, and did the trip \u201coverland\u201d along US 50 to the Capital. It would be their last time to go, and we couldn\u2019t walk the miles we used to in DC. But we could go to the Mall, and Mom and Dad could see the memorial to \u201ctheir War\u201d: to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mom was in a wheelchair to save her strength, and the three of us explored the beautiful columns and water features of the monument to the \u201cGreatest Generation\u201d. But what really struck them were the engravings on the wall, depicting iconic images of the War. You could not only see them, but feel them, touching the figures in the bronze pictures. Mom cried, Dad was solemn, and folks came up and thanked them for their service. There were others from \u201cthe War\u201d there as well, and Mom and Dad shared \u201cthe honor\u201d with all those other World War II vets and all that did not live to see the monument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m glad I could take them to see it. I\u2019m honored that I was able to share that experience with them. And I wish I could talk to them about it on the phone today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tequila Sunrise It\u2019s Memorial Day, and an Eagles\u2019 song comes to mind: Tequila Sunrise. We had the grown kids over for smoked ribs last night, and with our amazing Margarita machine (three pitchers at once!) made a lot of good drink to go with the good food. Thank goodness the dogs were mindful of the evening \u2013 they didn\u2019t get … Continue reading “Memorial Day 2022”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMemorial Day 2022 : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's Memorial Day of 2022. 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