I don’t know any soldiers, though I did have a roommate in college who was in the National Guard. We lost touch long ago, we had very little in common save our 1960s apartment, but I remember him fondly because in spite of our vast differences, he was a kind and considerate roommate. I remember sitting on the balcony with him one sunny afternoon drinking beer. One of our neighbors wandered by and said, “Look at you two! He’s in combat fatigues and you’re in tie-dye, how is it you can hang out together at ALL?!” It was a sunny California day and there was cold beer. What more do you need to find common ground?
I think of my roomie from time to time when I see the list of names scrolling over the screen during reports the war dead from Iraq. And I thought of him again this morning as I was listening to a story on NPR about a guardsman who’s not counted among the war dead. This man is still just as dead – he committed suicide after suffering from post traumatic stress. There are lots of other folks too who are no less dead for being Iraqi or Afghani, or being journalists, or being contractors in the line of fire, and they deserve remembering too.
I’m against the war. Have been from the get go. I don’t want to get in to it here, nor do I want to get into some specious arguments about whether I do or do not support the troops. What I want to mention is that Monday is Memorial Day and regardless of how I feel about the war, I can’t overlook the sadness of lost lives that are a result of the fighting in the Middle East. There’s lots of fun stuff going on this weekend and I’m going to be taking part in some of it, but I’m also looking around for some kind of Memorial Day service to attend just to acknowledge that yeah, there’s a war on and yeah, people are dying.
After you’ve put the beer on ice and started the coals, take a minute to just think about what’s happening elsewhere in the world, far away from your warming grill. There are lots of families who lost someone, husbands and daughters and sons and lovers and wives. Regardless of how you feel about the situation that caused those losses, it seems to me that the loss itself is universal. Memorial Day is a good time to remember that.