Memorial Day Observations
Featured Image: Flags in at Arlington National Cemetery
It’s Memorial Day weekend. For many of you that means the unofficial start of summer and family barbecues. It means that to me, but it also has a deeper meaning and a different set of activities.
I have a routine that I have done every year I’ve been stateside. It started when I was in Germany as a kid – my father was stationed at Artillery Kaserne near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria – when my dad would take me to various US cemeteries and we would clean headstones of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. We would clean up and trim the grass and whatever else.
When my son Max was old enough I started taking him with me to continue the tradition. We – weather permitting – go to several separate small cemeteries and clean the headstones of those who served.
Modern technology has made it easier and quicker to clean up. Between a product called Wet and Forget, battery powered string trimmers and leaf blowers, We can get more than triple the number of graves cleaned up than I did as a kid. Back then we used dish soap, scrub brushes and elbow grease.
This morning, starting about 0600, Max, his Affianced Cassie and I started cleaning. By the time we finished, we cleaned 47 headstones at 4 different cemeteries. The earliest dated back to the Civil War, the most recent was from 2011 and Afghanistan. As we were finishing the newest on, we ran into that kid’s – and yes he was a kid, only 19 – parents. It was an emotional scene.
Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,
Shelt’ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country’s derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O’er the expanse of our mighty dominions,
Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,
Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,
Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,
What did it cost for our fathers to gain!
Bought at the price of the heart’s dearest treasure,
Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;
Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,
Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.
Ah, but the day is past: silent the rattle,
And the confusion that followed the fight.
Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,
Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Ode For Memorial Day by Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Out of the dust and the dimness of death,
Burst into blossoms of glory eternal
Flowers that sweeten the world with their breath.
Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;
Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean
Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.
So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels
Which their unfaltering valor has won!
