Memorial Day Thoughts

This Memorial Day blog is dedicated to TSgt John A. Chapman, who perished in the Battle of Takur Ghur in Afghanistan in 2002.  At a ceremony yet to be scheduled, he will receive the Medal of Honor.

On Memorial Day, the graves of veterans who are buried in Arlington National Cemetery and other places of honor are visited by the living.  American flags are used to "decorate" those graves.  This is a tradition that began in ancient times.  Graves were decorated with flowers.  The tomb of Achilles was covered in amaranth and the grave of Sophocles with roses and ivy.

Unlike Veterans Day, when we honor every man and woman who has served our nation, Memorial Day is set aside to honor those who gave their lives during their military service.  Not just those who died in combat but all who died while serving.  All of the fallen deserve to be remembered.  Not just the 655,000 on both sides who fell during our Civil War.  Not just the 2,446 we lost during the Spanish-American War.  Not just the more than 116,000 from World War I, the more than 405,000 from World War II and the more than 36,000 from the Korean War.

We honor the 23 who were killed during Operation Just Cause (the U.S. Invasion of Panama).  We honor Captains Fernando Ribas-Dominicci and Paul Lorence.  They were shot down while carrying out the mission to bomb Libya in April of 1986.  We also honor Captains Paul Dean Martin Jr. (yes, the song of the famed singer) and Ramon Ortiz; who died on a routine training mission in March of 1987 when their plane crashed in the San Bernardino Mountains.

We honor MSGT Gary Gordon and SFC Randall Shughart along with the 17 other men who died in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.  We also honor Navy Lieutenant Matthew Claar, who was killed while making a night landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln on a training mission.

We honor Edith Ayres and Helen Wood, two nurses serving during World War I who died in a training accident while aboard the USS Magnolia.  Nurses did not hold rank at the time.  They were killed while sitting on deck, watching soldiers conducting a practice drill.  A weapon misfired and the resulting shrapnel killed both women.

Memorial Day is to honor all who have fallen while serving.  No matter where, no matter when.  During my 15 month tour of duty at Andersen Airbase on Guam, my unit lost five personnel.  The fact that one took his own life and three of the remaining four died because they chose to ignore rules and do stupid, dangerous things doesn't alter this fact.  They are our honored dead.

July marks the 45th anniversary of the U.S. military being an all-volunteer force.  Every man and woman serving made the choice to put on the uniform.  All who are serving now were honored on this year's Armed Forces Day.  All who served, in the past and in the present will be honored in November.  Memorial Day is reserved for those who fell while serving.

* * *

Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I’ve called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite’s leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy’s field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor’s Star.

Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it’s quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a’clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell’s ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o’er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

George S Patton, Jr.