Their faces tell stories.
One has friendly eyes and a shy smile. Another makes an obscene gesture at the camera, a show of manhood. Another looks tired. One toasts the camera with an energy drink, a cigarette dangling from his lips. One looks ferocious, a warrior’s expression behind dark goggles. Another looks confused. One is laughing with a child. Another has very little expression. One looks decidedly uncomfortable. Yet another is obviously being directed by the photographer, since his expression is serious.
They were fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, cousins, and friends to someone. There’s a daughter in there, too, courtesy of the modern military. They served at different times, in different branches, for different reasons.
But they all fell in battle, and that is what they have in common.
Monday is Memorial Day, once called Decoration Day. It commemorates those who lost their lives in service to the country whose largesse we all have the chance to enjoy, in part because of their sacrifices. The holiday was created when widows, daughters, sisters and mothers of those fallen in the War Between the States gathered to place flowers, ribbons and notes on the graves of the ward dead.
We can argue all day about where the tradition started – there are as many devotees who claim Decoration Day started in the South as there are in the North. Indeed, the victors always get to write the history, but the when and the where don’t matter as much as the why and the who for in this case.
The other day, I ran across an online collage of soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors who had been lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. I never met any of them. With one exception, I didn’t even know their names. Yet I owe them all a debt, as do you.
I was reminded of a photo I saw from the Vietnam conflict. But for the different equipment and weapons, they could have been the same young men. The picture was displayed at a veteran’s funeral, a man I knew growing up. There were four young men in the photo, tired, dirty, disheveled, but full of the spirit imbued by the Marine Corps. In careful ink, below three of the men, were the letters “KIA” and a date. Two shared the same date, if I recall correctly. The caption was carefully written at about a 45 degree angle under each one. The photo helped me realize why the man never talked about his time in the service: he came home. His friends – and you knew they were friends — didn’t make it.
I have two or three photos of a young man we consider a member of our family, even though he never sat at our table or relaxed under our trees messing with a hound. Kyle Stout was my nephew’s friend and comrade. Kyle died July 30, 2010, when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded. He was casualty No. 1,113 in the Afghan War. Another soldier named Casey, Kyle’s best friend, became an amputee in the same explosion. During the same patrol, Lt. Todd Weaver (no relation) apparently triggered an IED. He died as well.
Later, an explosive ordinance disposal expert, a sergeant named Trueblood, was killed in the same area.
You may have read the lieutenant’s words, as they were published after his death. Lt. Weaver’s letters to his family should be etched in stone or cast in bronze somewhere. They show what an American left behind because his country asked him to help fight for someone else’s freedom.
Not all such stories are as well documented, of course. Most are not. I know nothing of Frank, my grandfather’s comrade who saved his life in World War I. I don’t even really know how Frank did so. I know nothing about my Uncle Jim’s friend Pete, who was the last victim of a German pilot that Uncle Jim’s crew shot down in Africa.
I didn’t know T.J. Butler, but I do know that that young man’s sacrifice helped me make some lifetime friends, as we stood together to honor and protect his family. T.J. died in Afghanistan, too. So did Ryan Knauss and 12 other comrades, the last of 2,461 in Afghanistan and 4,902 in Iraq during our long war on terror. Knauss and the other 12 gave their lives at the bitter end, as politicians forgot the mission and sacrificed American lives and honor just to gain points on the prior administration.
There will always be more wars; indeed, if I were a betting man, I’d be eying the odds on when and where we get into a shooting match in Ukraine or Taiwan. When there are wars, people look to America to fight them, even when it isn’t our pony or even remotely our rodeo. When there are wars, people die. Americans die. Americans whose country called to them, and they responded, whether out of patriotism, a need to offer other folks the same freedoms we enjoy, a desire for education expenses, a sense of adventure, or boredom.
Regardless of their motivations, they are American fighting men and women. Sometimes they don’t come home. Those are the ones we honor Monday, Memorial Day.
Enjoy the day off work, or the trip to the beach, or being able to sleep in a little on Monday. Go fishing. Ride a horse or a four-wheeler. Drink a cold beer, if you’re so inclined. Enjoy a movie. Play with your kids. Watch a ball game. Love on your family.
Do what Ryan and T.J. and Frank and Pete and Todd and Kyle and hundreds of thousands of others would do if they could.
Just be an American, and treasure what we have. I’m willing to bet that whatever their differences, the ones we honor on Monday would love the opportunity to do any of those things one more time.
