Lest We Forget

“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain….” Abraham Lincoln, 1863

I remember, as a small child, visiting the city of Leavenworth, Kansas, which is about a forty minute drive from my hometown. There was a cemetery there, a military cemetery. As we drove by, it seemed to go on forever. Rows upon rows upon rows of white crosses stood out against the dark grass, already dried by the harsh Kansas summer sun. I asked my parents what the cemetery was, but somehow, internally, I already knew. Soldiers were buried there.

I was born in 2002, 10 months after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. I grew up in a world shaken by war. As a pastor’s kid in the Midwest, I was largely unaffected, because I was too little to really know or understand what was going on.

But my friend, my childhood best friend, had three cousins who were all in the military, stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And my grandfather and several of my great uncles had fought in Vietnam. My great grandfathers, who I never met, were in the military during World War II. And my uncle was involved with the Gulf War.

I remember saying goodbye to my best friend’s cousin before he shipped out for Afghanistan. I don’t think I even really understood why he was fighting, or whom. I never saw him again. He came home safe, but different, I was told. Last September, he took his own life. The PTSD he had developed was too much for him.

I think of my Uncle Dave and my grandfather, both of whom never talk about the war in Vietnam. My grandfather, who, when he got back from his deployment, lived next to the fire station and would hit the floor and roll underneath the bed every time a siren went off. My grandmother, also a veteran, who would wake up in the night to find him underneath the bed, wide-eyed and shaking, reliving the horror he had seen overseas. My Uncle Bruce, who died two years ago from cancer–the agent orange he dropped in Vietnam had started the process forty plus years before that.

Memorial Day is a time of reflection and remembrance. All of these men, my family and friends, came home, but they were changed men. Two of them died later because of the wounds they had received, whether physically or mentally, while laying their lives on the line. And I think of all those graves in Leavenworth National Cemetery–the rows upon rows upon rows of white crosses–and all those buried there, some of which didn’t come back. Somebody’s cousin. Somebody’s grandfather or great grandfather. Somebody’s uncle. Somebody’s husband. Somebody’s son.

I look around at my generation today, and I wonder if we really get it, if I really get it, if I still don’t and won’t ever understand what these men and women and their families went through and are going through and will go through to protect our great country.

I don’t understand it. But I can appreciate it.

From 1775 until today, to those who served, are serving, or will be serving, and especially to those who laid their down their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to protect our great country, you have my gratitude and thanks.

“Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Happy Memorial Day.