Memorial Day Memories

Memorial Day is fraught with difficult memories for me, especially over the Vietnam conflict, one that, though fought with deadly force in Southeast Asia, caused great argument and bitterness here as well, as families argued over its morality and the government’s policies in pursuing it. I wish it had never happened, none of it. But we cannot fully undo the things we do, not through regret, nor apology, and never even with enough financial recompense (maybe seemingly appropriate responses) to those, military or civilian, most harmed by our actions.

My father graduated into military service in the US Army in May 1941 from Texas A&M College (its name then), and trained for World War II months before Pearl Harbor. Soon transferred from a Louisiana base to Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, his unit tested water landing craft, in preparation for what would later be D-Day. Once overseas, he worked mostly as an engineer and supply officer behind the front lines, first in North Africa, then Italy, and then in France and Germany, remaining out of the USA from August 1942 until July 1945.

After that war, he remained a part of the Army Reserve, and didn’t retire until long after I had graduated from high school, leaving the ranks as Lieutenant Colonel. His military service during WWII was something he did not talk about, until much, much later in his life. Now I fear that silence was partly because he and I had such bitter and seething arguments about the war in Vietnam, both of us making vicious accusations and claims.

One of my high school classmates, drafted at graduation into the Army, was killed very shortly after beginning his service in Vietnam. I was then a freshman in college, taking overloads of credit hours and working two jobs, so I had little time to participate myself in the anti-war candlelight vigils on campus or marches through town, but the death of my classmate and a vicious attack late that academic year on two friends, both seniors and vigorous anti-war student body leaders, made me that much more passionate in my arguments with Dad. (Kidnapped one night late, stripped naked, heads shaved, then tarred, feathered and driven miles into the country, the two young men were left to find their way back to town on foot.)

Those two events, the death of my high school classmate and the tarring and feathering of two friends, more than the political or philosophical arguments, are what made me, I believe, so very bitter about the war. Nevertheless I soon watched my two younger brothers both serve on active duty (one Navy and one Army), and perhaps that helped me gradually moderate my own feelings about the war. Now I surely have deep regrets for the arguments with my father.

Dad and I made peace in the late 1970’s, during endless fencefixing sessions on family land at the Buckner’s Creek Bottom west of town, after he changed jobs and had more time in the evenings and weekends to spend with his grown daughter (home from my college teaching job in the summer.) It was a time when we could talk about the recently-ended war and politics to one another in a more civil tone while working up a sweat and swatting mosquitoes.

Now, my week before Memorial Day includes a trip to the city cemetery to put out two dozen or more US flags on the graves of deceased veterans. I especially search out those soldiers’ graves with no flowers, ones overlooked by other organizations that place flags. Some I honor were volunteers, some drafted, but none of them were responsible for the wars in the first place. That responsibility lies elsewhere, and I leave it in gratitude to others to determine how to regard and perhaps honor the civilian leaders who sent all these many men and women off into wars across the globe.

In a democracy like ours, I want to believe that leaders do this with regret, and not because “a good war is the refuge of all bad politicians.” So I say with conviction, “God bless all the men and women who fought on behalf of our country.” (God bless you, too, dear readers, as you say a kind word of thanks to the veterans and active service members you meet this week!)