Memorial Day Tribute

Memorial Day is their day, is'nt it? It supposed to be
the day a grateful nation pauses to quietly thank the
more than one million men and women who have died in
military service to their country since the revolutionary
war.

Or is it the day the beach resorts kick into high gear
for the summer season, the day the strand is covered
by fish-belly white people basting themselves in coconut
oil, the day the off season rates end and the weekend
you can't get in a seaside seafood restaurant with anything
less than a hour wait.

Or is it one of the biggest shopping center sales day
of the year, a day when hunting for a parking space is
the prime sport for the holiday stay-at homers?

Or is it the weekend when more people will kill themselves
on the highways than any other weekend and highway patrol
troopers work overtime picking up the pieces?

I think the men and women who died for us would understand
what we do with their day. I hope they would, because if
they wouldn't, if they would have insisted that it be a
somber, respectful day of remembrance, then we have blown
it and dishonored their sacrifice.

I knew some of those who died and the guys I knew would
have understood.

They liked a sunny beach and a cold beer and a hot babe
in a black bikini too. They would have enjoyed packing
the kids, the inflatable rafts, the coolers, and the suntan
lotion in the car and heading for the lake. They would have
enjoyed staying at home and cutting the grass and getting
together with some friends and cooking some steaks on the
grill too.

But they didn't get the chance. They blew up in the marine
barracks in beirut and died in the oily waters of the persian
gulf. They caught theirs at the airstrip in grenada in the
little war everyone laughed at. They bought the farm in the
drang valley and on heartbreak ridge, phu tai and at the hue.
they froze at the chosin reservoir and were shot at the pusan
perimeter. Guadal canal. They died in the ice and snow of
the bulge and the vosges mountains. They were at the somme
and san juan hill and at gettysburg and at cerro gordo and
at valley forge.

They couldn't be here with us today, but think they would
understand that we don't spend the day in tears and heart-
-wrenching memorials. They wouldn't want that. Grief is not
why they died. they died so we could go fishing. They died
so another father could toss a baseball to his son in their
backyard while the charcoal is getting white. They died so
another buddy could drink a beer on his day off. They died
so a family could get in the minivan and go shopping and maybe
get some ice cream on the way home. They died so that the same
family could worship in their own way in a church of their
choosing.

They won't mind that we have chosen their day to have our
first big outdoor party of the year. But they wouldn't mind,
either, if we took just a few minutes and thought of them.

Some will think of them formally, of course. Wreaths will
be laid in small sparsely attended ceremonies in military
cemeteries and at monuments at state capitals and in small
town squares. Flags will fly over the graves, patriotic words
will be spoken and a few people there will probably feel a
little anger that no more people showed up. They'll think no
one else remembers.

But we do remember. we remember smitty and chico, and davey
and the guys who died. We remember the deal we made: if we
buy it, we said, " Drink a Beer for Me "

I'll do it for you guys. I'll drink that beer for you today
and I'll sit on that beach for you, and check out the girls
for you, and just briefly, I'll think of you. I won't let
the memory of your tragic death spoil the trip but you'll
be on that sunny beach with me today.

I will not mourn your deaths this Memorial Day, my Friends.
Rather I'll celebrate the life you gave me.

SEMPER FIDELIS

Steven Boaze USMC