The Talbot Spy’s video of flags installed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the gravesites of 400 veterans at Historic Spring Hill Cemetery in Easton in commemoration of Memorial Day on Monday, May 25 was touching in its poignant simplicity. No patriotic music. No fanfare.
Just a quiet remembrance. Properly so.
A friend asked me how I planned to mark Memorial Day. The word “celebrate” seems inappropriate to me. I said I planned to pause and pray.
Memorial Day often elicits lofty speeches at public events. We are enjoined to pay homage to men and women who have lost their lives in our nation’s wars. Speakers urge attendees to understand the sacrifice of life for the preservation of freedom and liberty.
More importantly, Memorial Day offers all of us time to reflect on the inevitability of war and foreign combat and the men and women willing to risk and lose their lives in service to their country. We think of those who emitted their last breaths on foreign soil, on hostile seas and dangerous air space. We also think of those who returned home, some with invisible wounds, led productive lives and died proud of their military service.
I think back to the fall of 1994 when at the urging of Governor William Donald Schaefer, a World War II veteran, a monument was finally dedicated to Marylanders who fought in Union and Confederate forces during the Battle of Gettysburg. Unlike most typical monuments on this hallowed battlefield, this one struck me as particularly poignant: the sculpture showed two soldiers, fierce opponents during this bloody battle, helping each other step away from combat.
It’s striking to me that Maryland, a border state, had no monument honoring all Marylanders until this monument materialized 131 years after the Battle of Gettysburg. I wonder how many families suffered irreparable rifts due to the Civil War.
As the project officer for the Maryland National Guard for a dedication ceremony that deeply touched the emotions of a large crowd, I learned that one of the many face-offs, the Battle of Culp’s Hill, had a Talbot County connection. The flag-bearers for each side were cousins from Trappe, facing other during one of the Civil War’s most notable and deadly battles in a small Pennsylvania town not very far from the Maryland border.
Memorial Day, understandably so, seems focused on recent wars, while our 20th century conflicts—World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War—are fading to some degree from the public conscience. That’s too bad. I view the Vietnam War, which polarized our country, as my generation’s foreign incursion; for far too long, the veterans of this Southeast Asian conflagration failed to receive the acclamation and gratitude they so richly deserved.
Away from the inviting smells of a neighborhood cookout and warm bonhomie, I pause to think about the severely dangerous conditions of combat in countries often torn about our fighting (and dying) on their turf, the frightened but courageous soldiers representing all branches of the Armed Forces and their lives shortened tragically by lethal circumstances outside their control.
I pray for the families who have lost love ones. I hope they arrive at some inner peace.
Small American flags at 400 gravesites at the Historic Spring Hill Cemetery in Easton say so much by saying so little. They say “thank you.”
That’s the right thing to do.
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