Memorial Day

“So you got big plans for the holiday weekend?”

Benny Watson worked in the cubical next to mine.  I guess he was a nice enough guy.  In the two weeks since I had started he had talked to me several times.  He had been both friendly and helpful as I adjusted to my new job, but I still had not opened up to any of my new coworkers.  I did not make friends easily and really wasn’t looking for any new ones.

“Yea, I do actually.”

“Cool, you going to the lake?  Skip from accounting, you know him?  He and I, and our families, we are going to have a little picnic Monday over at Jack’s Bridge state park.  You know where that is?”

“Yea Benny, I do.  I’ve been there before.”

“OK, well you know, if you wanted to stop by, we are going to grill some burgers and stuff, might drink a few beers, nothing fancy or anything, but you’re welcome to come by if you want to.  We do it every year.”

I thought about it for a moment.  It would be nice actually, but I had a more pressing engagement on Monday.

“Thanks, I might.” I replied knowing very well I probably would not.  “You do it every year?”

“Well, we have for the last 6 or 7, every Memorial Day.”

I gathered my things and followed Benny out of the office.

Just one more ‘holiday’ weekend I thought.  That’s all Memorial Day is anymore I guess.

I was getting in my truck when I saw Benny pull out of his parking spot.  I flagged him down before he left.

Walking over to his car as he rolled down the window I told him, “I’ll tell you what Benny, I will come to your picnic, I’ll even bring a case of beer, but first you come with me to my thing.”

“OK, great, sure, what you got?”

“Oh, just a little thing in the morning, I’ll even pick you up.  We will be at the lake by 11.”

Benny told me how to get to his house and I told him I would pick him up about 8:30 on Monday morning.  He said he would load up his stuff and we could just meet his wife and kids at Jack’s Bridge.

Well, I am going to have to get to know some of them sooner or later. I said to myself thinking of Benny and my other co workers.  No time like the present.

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“I don’t mind, that sounds like fun,” my wife Nancy said when I told her about the picnic.

“I am glad you’re getting to know some of the guys.”

“Well,” I told her, “If you don’t want to go that would be fine.”

“No, it will be good to meet some new people.  If I don’t like them I can always avoid them later.  You’re still going to speak in the morning right.”

“Yea, I need to.”

“I know,” she said as she wrapped her arms around me.  “I'll be there too.”

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Monday morning we picked up Benny and I introduced him to Nancy.  They made some small talk as we drove across town to National Cemetery.  I don’t think Benny realized where we were going until we pulled up and parked.

“Oh,” Benny said looking around.  “I didn’t know, I mean, I’m not really dressed.”

“You’re fine.” I told him.  “Just follow Nancy and find a seat.  It won’t take that long.”

“Here,” I said, handing him a red poppy as I pinned one on myself.

I got my VFW hat out of the trunk and put it on with my leather vest.  My uniform still hung in the bedroom closet at home, but it was several sizes too small to wear now.  As Nancy and Benny found seats I took my place on the platform. 

Promptly at 9 the Boy Scout troop raised the flag and then lowered it halfway while a group from the high school band played.  There were essays from our scholarship winners that they read and then I got up to make my comments.  They were very similar to what I had said the year before, and the year before that.

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On behalf of those who cannot, let me thank you for coming today, for remembering the sacrifice of those who have gone before us and those still to come.  Many years ago, it was Abraham Lincoln who told us that it was not the ground or the dead that were to be dedicated or consecrated, but those of us still living; that we needed to dedicate ourselves so that these dead shall not have died in vain.

That was long before Memorial Day became a holiday.  You know some holidays come about by an act of government or the memorial of a specific event.  Not today.  Memorial Day began almost simultaneously in communities north and south after the civil war.  It took another war, and a common enemy to unite our country so that we could even celebrate on the same day.  Memorial Day only became an official holiday in 1971.

You can call it Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, or Remembrance Day.  Call it whatever you want.  We have been gathering here, in this sacred spot since long before ’71 to remember.  I remember, I remember being brought here as a child.  I remember my daddy explaining why some of those old markers are round on top and others are peaked.  I remember seeing the color guard here when my grandfather was laid to rest.  I remember how professional they looked, how sharp their uniforms were, how loud the guns when they fired.  It impressed me as a boy and impresses me still.

Years later, as a teen ager, I sat where many of you are now.  I looked at the rows of stones and crosses, and I wondered.  I wondered how this idea of freedom, or any other idea, could be worth the cost and the loss those stones represent.  How could it be worth it?

Then, just a few years later I was back here again, no longer sitting in the audience, but standing with the color guard.  It was me who then wore the uniform and fired the salute.  That was when I first began to know those laid here.  Oh, I knew my grandfather, but grandfathers are supposed to die.  I know that sounds cold but it is true.  We grow old and we die, all of us do, but some here did not grow old, they were cut down in their youth, sacrificed to ensure the safety and liberty of us all.  I began then to see stones, like Larry Payne’s over there, and I remembered them, I knew them.  I remembered boys I went to school with and played ball with.  I knew then that anything worth their sacrifice was also worth mine and I took my turn and served my duty.

Unlike Larry, I got to come home and grow old.  I remember when I got home and some of you, some of you here today; you patted me on the back and bought me drinks.  You told me how proud you were of me.  I didn’t feel like I deserved it then.  I still don’t today, but I accepted your thanks on behalf of Larry, and everyone else that couldn’t.  At the same time though, I patted myself on the back.  I told myself that my sacrifice was over, that I have done my duty and given all I could.  I was wrong.

I hold before you a letter.  I will not read it to you, it is mostly everyday comments and it is personal.  It is from my son, Sergeant Robert Wall, 1st battalion 387th infantry, in Basra Iraq.  Robbie is doing well.  He should be home by Labor Day.  Perhaps in the years to come it will be him making this speech instead of me.

Freedom is never free, and it is never paid in full.  The only reason we can enjoy our lives, the only reason we can enjoy what has become to most of our community nothing more than a holiday is because of the sacrifice, the sacrifice of those who have gone before us and lay in this field, and the sacrifice of those coming after us.  Those who today lay their own lives in harm’s way in different places around the world, making one more installment, one more payment for our liberty.

For all those who have gone before, and all those yet to come, may we be dedicated and consecrated today; that those who have died have not died in vain.  Let them be remembered, and may our nation continue and prosper.

Thank you.

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“No, not those,” I told Nancy, “I want the bread and butter pickles, in the other jar.”

She handed me my plate and sat down next to me.  A light breeze was blowing off the lake and we could see the jet skies and power boats running back and forth across the crowded lake.

A radio played in the background and Skip’s wife told us about their daughter Jenna and how great her first year at Middle Tennessee State University was going.  I could smell the smoke from the charcoal.  The burger was good and the beer was cold.  It was a good day to be an American.  Yet in the back of my mind I thought of Robbie.

Looking across the table at Benny I could see a deeper sadness in his eyes as well.

“Hope I didn’t ruin your holiday.” I told him.

“Not at all Frank.  No you actually gave it some meaning, thanks.”

Perhaps Benny is going to be an alright guy to know after all. I thought.