My father used to put out the flags on graves in his LaGrange County area on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. He was 81 when he died in early 2000. I remember reading in that time period about a parade that was cancelled in a little east coast town because they didn’t have anyone strong enough to carry the flag anymore. Yesterday, I heard Der Bingle tell LZP that a veteran’s group wasn’t marching in a parade because they didn’t think they could walk that far anymore.
When I was in high school, the WWII veterans swelled the ranks of the American Legion halls and I didn’t think about it, other than to assume it would go on forever. But they got old – these men who once had the youth and vitality of Matt Damon in “Saving Private Ryan. There are times when I see young people grow impatient with aged gentlemen fumbling with a cell phone or asking for something to be repeated more loudly; they can’t see the soldier/sailor/airman behind the grey hair and stooping posture.
At such times, I wish for a minute of time travel, in which the young person finds himself slogging through mud or hunkering down in a foxhole under fire and turning to see the young version of the now old man scowling and growling, “Well, come on, kid, buck up.” (There is probably more appropriate G.I. slang, but I’ll leave it to your imagination.)
It is tempting to say time has rained on Memorial Day Parades, but that is not really so; it is more my perception from my era. The last Civil War vet, the last WWI vet . . .and now dwindling WWII vets. It’s a good thing that there have not been more huge wars . . . I think we need, though, to keep actively honoring those who served.
We need to do what Memorial Day suggests by it’s name: we need to remember. And be thankful our generation and the younger generations are not filled with those of actual wartime memories and filled with hundreds of thousands who rest in early graves.
Gee, I hope I can get off my soapbox without tripping.
