The Political Conundrum!

Today is a day of celebrate for our great nation and I will be the first to admit that I love the Parades, Picnics, and most of all the Fireworks! This year I will be doubly grateful as I hope to sit between my two soldiers (my husband on one side and my eldest son on the other). For the last three years, I have sat without one of them by my side. For three years I have silently dreaded the Fourth of July. I have always had a hard time holding it together when the patriotic music starts as the fireworks show began. It really doesn’t matter what song; our National Anthem, God Bless the USA, or America…you can bet I will have a tear running down my face. It’s not just the patriotic feelings I have but it is the memory linked to the Fourth that also brings a tear to my eye. The memory is 40 years old this year and while time has faded some parts from my mind, the image of a young soldier so handsome in his uniform, standing tall with so much pride for our Great Nation will never fade away nor will I let it. Why … ask because he is just one of many soldiers who have offered up their lives to make our nation what it is today. It is because of their courage, sacrifice and selflessness that we have A Great Nation…A Free Nation!

There is a saying among the Veteran Community that says “Some Gave All, All Gave Some.” While the statement is so simple the truth in it speaks volumes “for everyone who goes to war comes back changed and quite frankly some come back in body but never in mind or spirit.” Every soldier who has ever stepped foot on to the battlefield, whether in France, Germany, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or Gettysburg, was changed from the moment they stepped into the war zone. Likewise, the lives of a soldier’s family are forever changed from the moment they leave their loved ones side. While life goes on for those not directly affected by war, time often stands still for those of us waiting at home. We too at home pay a silent price. A price that no one in this nation can ever repay for there simply isn’t a dollar amount to place on the loss of a loved one or the loss of the time as it passes when a loved is deployed.

Forty years ago today a handsome, young, and brave soldier lost his life for our country, on all days the Fourth of July. He lost his life in Dinh Tuong, South Vietnam. He wasn’t in country very long, just a little over 3 months. So the men that served with him probably didn’t get to know what a wonderful young man he was. He was the only casualty that day in his Company and while I am sure his loss was felt by his fellow soldiers and Command, it was his waiting family and friends that have felt his loss the deepest. While the family takes comfort in the fact that other men were spared because of his courageous act, it doesn’t erase the years of wondering what his life would have been. We wonder would he have married his longtime girlfriend…how many children would he have raised with his tender touch and mischief ways…or would he have returned home so deeply scarred like so many that had gone before him.

I asked myself the other day how did a young man so full of life, with such a tender heart and gentle touch offer up his life when he didn’t have too. I have often wondered through my adult years if the pull to serve was due to being born on Veterans Day and that it was some type of sick twist of fate that took him from us on the Fourth of July. Either way, we will never know. What I do know and remember is that he was a wonderful and loving man full of hopes and dreams. He was a loving son and devoted brother. He was the son a World War II veteran and the brother of a Vietnam Veteran. He didn’t have to serve…he could have walked away and no one would have blamed him but he was proud to serve our nation and proud to wear his uniform. He was proud to be an American and I am proud that he was a part of my life if even only for a little while.

I came across the poem below not long ago. It was one that a fellow soldier dedicated in Tommy’s memory and I think it is appropriate to share it with you today. The message is simple…remember them. Today especially we should remember them and all of our soldier’s who have served our Great Nation! So here in honor of Tommy, David, Ben, Rod and every soldier who has ever paid the ultimate price for our Freedom. Thank you for your courage, for your sacrifice and for your service to our Great Nation! I will always remember you and your families. May you find peace on the other side!

Much Love, Chrissy

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died remember us.
by Archibald MacLeish,
1892-1982, American Poet

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