I Remember
Spent the day so far in kinda deep thought and now heading out to drive in circles on my mower while drinking a beer or three. On any other weekend this post would seem annoyingly self serving, but I decided to leave it to you to decide if it fits.
After struggling to find words I went to YouTube and listened to a bunch of appropriate and semi appropriate tunes…
I found one that suits me and my mood. Doesn’t seem to need a bunch of additional words from this seat.
Category: Geezer Alert!, We Remember
I also remember.
Therefore, a bowed head and a silent prayer is offered.
And respectfully a hand salute is rendered to those on the Wall.
Rest Well my Comrades In Arms.
Ralph is the only one of my high school friends whose name is on The Wall. I don’t think of Ralph every day. I can’t say that I think of him often. Yet memories of him come unbidden at irregular moments often enough that I’ve never really forgotten him. Had he enlisted he might have ended up in the Signal Corps, but he was drafted and became an 11B. On those occasions when I think of Ralph, I wonder if anyone in Ayer, MA, still remembers him. I hope so.
http://www.virtualwall.org/dw/WattsRO01a.htm
I moved to Shirley in 1965. Ralph was gone before I got there, so I never knew him, but it still gives me a chill. I do remember Doug Moore and another who died in Vietnam. I was in the Tonkin Gulf at the beginning of the end. We lost a lot of men there in 1972, KIA, MIA and POWs. You may not think of them all the time, may not even remember their names, but you never forget.
19
It’s apropos, Zero.
So long as we remember them, they’re not completely gone.
Zero………..Spot on!
That God Damn wall! It haunts me every time I see it!
I can’t watch it. After all these years the emotions are more raw than ever. The 25th ID patch on the hat above got me going….spent a little time in Cu Chi hospital before being sent home. Haven’t gone to the wall – seems as I get older the going gets tougher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyNkS0HCroo
Dear mother how I will write this line
When I know I’m counting time
I’m tired and I’m scared
I’m waiting and death’s my friend
To say in God we trust not for this
Oh the death and glory boys not for this
Dear beloved try to write to you
Through the senseless deaths of a million troops
I’m waiting my time is near
As my tears wash away my years
To say in God we trust not for this
Oh the death and glory boys not for this
Where I walk where I see
The haunting flares where my friends bleed
I see the face of the enemy
Of a man or boy who is just like me
Now you’re not there
All the tears we bled
Cut through like winters rain
Can’t you feel the pain
And if I could ever sleep again
I know till the end of time
I’d hear Their screams of pain
Dulce dulce decorum Dulce dulce decorum Dulce Dear mother I’ll write to you
Years ago, my wife and I rode to Alamagordo NM to the traveling Wall on Memorial Day weekend. Heavy rains had cleared any crowds. After a time at the wall, we got back to the parking lot, and I sat on a curb, weeping uncontrollably- for those I’d known, and for those unknown.
Guys came quietly, guys who understood, to offer help, or to leave me to it.
Is it healing, is it somehow cleansing?
Even now I can’t say.
But that wall.
That damn wall.
Well another year brings us another Memorial Day. It is a quite different day for me personally. I respect anyway people may choose to celebrate their “three day weekend” from work. Especially this one being the mark of the beginning of summer. That is one of the many freedoms we enjoy in our nation. To worship, to speak, to celebrate as we choose. I personally do not say “Happy Memorial Day” to anyone. It’s just my personal choice. If others say it to me I smile and nod and reply “Thank you, have an Honored Memorial Day as well”. Yes, I love to celebrate as well. I like picnics and barbeques and fireworks and all the trappings of a day off and long weekends and I criticize no one for their choices. However for me, Memorial Day is a quiet and solemn time. I remember and mourn those of my generation and my war, who I knew and loved and lost. As well, I remember those of generations past I loved and some, I never met. Those lost before I was born. My father who passed in 1978, fought through North Africa, Sicily, Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge. My uncles and cousins and our close neighbors who served as Soldiers, Marines, Army Air Corpsmen and Sailors in Europe and the Pacific Island fighting. Between us was the generation who fought the Chinese backed North Koreans to a standstill. I grew up in North Carolina. In mostly the Durham and Henderson areas. My family on Daddy’s side had lived for generations deep in the western mountains and my Mother’s family from the northern Piedmont. Marriages brought many new names and extensions to our big family. In each home was a table or wall. A wall or a table sitting prominently in the living room or the “parlor” as they called it. They were rooms of soft spoken words and treasures from past generations. It was in such a room where my grandmother lay at rest in her coffin and then my grandfather as well for visitation. In times… Read more »
Serving in 74-77 I only saw the remnants of the Army that served in country.
For me, it is enough to say that I truly served in the company of heroes.
Very well written Sparks, thank you for your recollections. They do not fall on unseeing eyes or unhearing ears.
I come from a long line of military family with someone serving in every conflict this country has been in since before the Revolutionary War.
The tradition continued with my immediate family including me and my Daughter.
Beautiful Sparks, just simply beautiful. Stay well my friend.
I was in the US Army active 1986- 1989. I had a ton of Viet Nam vets teach me skills to keep me sharp when/if we had to go to war…. Thank God I never had to use them, but I went into the USAR for nine years and taught my men some of the lessons I was taught and had a good group of men….THANKS ALL VN VETS FOR MAKIN’ ME THE SOLDIER I WAS….