Sunrise Cemetery (05/22/2015)
I am not a saint. No man is, at least, none that I’ve met in recent memory. Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of good men and women in our world, doing good work, folks that the Wizard of Oz would call “good deed doers.” But the perfect man or woman, unblemished and suited for deification? Maybe there was one such man. Perhaps he was the one who founded the religion I follow. Or maybe there were several, including a caring woman or two. Maybe they were folks who knew God intimately in their own way and time, perhaps in the deserts of the Middle East or the boiling waters of the Ganges or in the fiery flames of a pyre in war-torn medieval France. But my point is a simple one: I haven’t come across such personages lately. Oh, I know that somewhere in the billions of human beings inhabiting our Earth, there are some folks who are eligible for saintly consideration; I just haven’t had the pleasure of making their company.
Which brings me to today. Memorial Day, 2015. It’s a rainy, cold, dismal morning as I listen to Bob Dylan and the Band’s live album, Before the Flood, and try to string words into sentences that make some semblance of sense. Sometimes my writing does that, hits the mark, makes a point. Other times, it wanders a bit (as it is now) before the theme of a piece emerges and grabs hold of my creative effort. But it is indeed a horridly gray and dreary day outside, so if getting to the point takes a while, I’ll blame it on the weather.
Friday, a dozen or more Scouts from Boy Scout Troop 106 and its Venture Crew placed flags on the graves of the departed at Sunrise Memorial Park in Hermantown. It’s a ritual that our troop has been annually engaged in since my son Jack joined Scouting. Jack’s been a Scout for eleven years and, over that time span, he’s occasionally helped place flags on the graves of service men and women at Sunrise. I have not. Oh, I’ve spoken at the Proctor Memorial Day remembrance as a guest, attended a couple of other programs honoring the men and women who served our nation and are no longer with us, but I’ve never, until Friday, personally experienced placing flags on military graves. To be clear, the folks we were honoring at Sunrise were not saints. No Pope had said the pious, necessary incantations raising the departed to such illustrious status. No, the folks I honored on Friday were simple, ordinary people who, at some point in their lives (usually straight out of high school) chose to serve us in the military. Note that I didn’t write “serve their country”. To me, that time-worn phrase misses the point. Even in the deepest depths of World War and Vietnam, when the so-called universal draft was in place, not everyone called to serve did so. This isn’t a phenomenon limited to the modern era: Back when President Lincoln proclaimed the necessity of the very first selective service call to save the Union, men of means were able to avoid the horrors of the battlefield by paying someone to do their duty. More recently, college deferments, elopement to Canada, proclamation of conscientious objector status, and a myriad of other exceptions have been used by young American men to avoid service during times of conflict. Simply put: Those who answered America’s call to service went in place of those who did not. Those who answered the call served in our stead. They served us. Perhaps they went because they loved their country. Perhaps they went because they didn’t like the consequences attended to not going. Perhaps they had a burning desire to be hungry, miserable, and in constant fear. Whatever the reasons, they went. For us.
And then there are those who’ve volunteered. They joined the active military, the reserves, the guard, the Coast Guard. And then, true to their oaths, they too did their duty by going to war or by serving in places that, while not torn apart by conflict, were foreign, dangerous, and a long way from northeastern Minnesota. The men and women who chose the military and the Coast Guard joined for us. By volunteering to be part of the defensive strength of our nation protecting our freedoms, our borders, our liberty and our lives, they have served us to an extent that affixing a few dozen flags to white crosses crafted by an Eagle Scout from Troop 106 can never repay or thank. They were not, these Americans who served us and came to final rest in the moist earth of Sunrise Memorial Park, saints. They were ordinary folks: our neighbors, our friends, our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters. But they served us. And for that, whether they were compelled to their service via the draft or chose to join of their own volition, we owe them more than a few moments reflection on Memorial Day.
Our son Jack is one of these ordinary folks. Jack, a high school junior and seventeen years old, recently enlisted in the United States Army National Guard. Soon, he will be off to basic training. He will travel a long way from Fredenberg, Minnesota and join other young men and women who’ve chosen to serve us. While those of us in northeastern Minnesota enjoy a summer of fishing and kayaking and hiking and biking, Jack and his fellow enlistees will be enjoying the sultry heat and humidity of Fort Jackson, S.C. learning to be solidiers. I pray for him, as I prayed for the departed last Friday when I placed flags on crosses. I pray that we treasure their service to us and that we remember their sacrifices every day we enjoy our freedom and our liberty. Though those who have served and who are now serving are not saints, we owe them at least that much.
Peace.
Mark
