It is The Veteran

Foreword -

In today's world of 24/7 news and social media, it's very easy to become blinded by political rhetoric to the point we lose track of why we observe Memorial Day. Memorial Day should not be a day to argue political points of view or to debate the justification for sending young men and women into combat. It should not be just the day when we break out the grill for the first lawn party of the year.

Memorial Day should never be "celebrated", for "celebrate" infers joy or the successful conclusion of some endeavor. Rather, Memorial Day should be "observed", one day out of two in each year in which we engage in somber reflection. It is the day we give the highest of honors to the men and women who earned that honor regardless of their personal politics. They should be honored because they served their country to the best of their ability and gave their lives in rendering that service.

This has been true since the first shots were fired at Concord, Massachusetts in 1775 and it is true today. Memorial Day should be a day when all people come together and remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and for their brothers and sisters in arms. On other days, we can debate the justifications for and results of that sacrifice, but on Memorial Day there can be no debate about one simple truth about these men and women - their country called on them to serve and they gave everything they had to give. Surely that alone is enough for us to put aside our differences and pay the tribute that sacrifice demands of us.

For those readers who do not reside in the US, I hope you also take time out from the constant rush life has become to reflect upon the men and women who gave you the ability to enjoy the life you lead, and in doing so gave their own lives. In many countries, those men and women were part of a resistance movement instead of the formal military of the country, but gave their lives because of what they believed was right and just and to the betterment of the world and not just to themselves. They're heroes and heroines just the same. They deserve to be remembered and respected and revered.

The scene that unfolded that Wednesday afternoon was one that I'd experienced once before, but it still caused tears to stream down my cheeks. You'd think a man wouldn't do that - cry. We're told almost from birth that guys don't show their emotions. All men learn that, but there are times when it just happens, like it was happening to me then.

I knew it was the same for Alice because this was her second time as well. She had tears in her eyes too, but at least she wasn't sobbing like the first time. That was because this time had been expected. Her father was ninety-five and had been in poor health for the last year. Just before he went, he held her hand and told her he was sorry he had to leave her, but she shouldn't grieve too long because he'd had a good life and it was time for him to go and join her mother. Then he said he loved her, something I'd never heard him tell her before. He'd already held my hand and asked me to promise I'd take good care of Alice.

A few minutes later, there wasn't any of the drama like you see on TV. He just stopped breathing and his face went slack. I'd seen that before too and sometimes I still did in my dreams, though my dreams took place in the sweltering heat and humidity of a jungle in Vietnam instead of beside a hospital bed.

Both Alice and I cried that night in the hospital. I loved that old man like he was my father, because in a lot of ways, he was. He'd steered me into something greater than I was, and though it was overpowering and at times worse than any nighmare I'd ever had, I'll never forget it or him.

We were standing under an awning over the grave site and watching the Honor Guard in US Army dress uniforms slowly side-stepping the flag draped casket to the frame over the vault.

To one side stood an array of men in police, EMT, and fireman's uniforms, and behind them were the police cars and motorcycles that had escorted the hearse from the Methodist Church to the grave site. Almost all except the very youngest of them were veterans of service in some far-off land too, and they were standing at attention.

Around that awning were about fifty men with American flags. Some wore the caps of the American Legion or VFW. A couple wore black vests with "MIA/POW emblazoned on the back. Most, like me, were older and a little heavier than when they'd worn a uniform. Most, also like me, didn't have as much hair either. Still, they stood at attention through the entire ceremony because each and every one was a veteran who was there to honor a fellow veteran as he was laid to his eternal rest.

Once the Honor Guard was in position, the officer in charge of the detail quietly ordered, "Down", and the six men of the Honor Guard lowered the casket to the frame so slowly and in such a smooth, coordinated manner there was almost no sound when it touched.

After that, the six men picked up the American flag at the corners and center, pulled it taut over the casket with a snap and then held it over the casket while standing at attention. I hadn't seen the officer standing off to one side until he began reading from a list of commendations Alice's father had earned in the US Army in World War II. Bill had told me he'd been wounded once, and he'd never said anything about any medals. I was surprised that he'd been awarded the Purple Heart three times, the Bronze Star with "V" and one cluster, and the silver star. He'd never even hinted about more than one Purple Heart and he seemed to be embarrassed about that one.

When the officer finished, I heard the command, "Present Arms" followed by three short commands of "Ready", "Aim", "Fire" followed by the shots of the three riflemen standing about fifty yards away, and then the command "Reset". Three such volleys were fired after which the detail received the command, "Reset" followed by "Present Arms".

I was doing OK until the mournful, soft strains of "Taps" played by an unseen bugler in the distance was the only sound except the occasional sniff from some of those in attendance and the ruffling of the awning in the breeze. I didn't try to wipe away the tears then. It wouldn't have done any good.

The Honor Guard then carefully folded the American Flag into the regulation tri-corner shape. The senior man flattened the folded flag against his chest and then held it up to make sure the flag was properly folded before presenting it to the officer in charge. After slowly saluting the Honor Guard, the officer in charge took the folded flag between his palms and received the slow salute of the Honor Guard leader. He then gave the order, "Honor Guard, Post", and after the Honor Guard marched to the side, he walked slowly up to Alice, knelt down on one knee and and spoke quietly as he handed her the flag.

"On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service."

He stood, slowly saluted Alice, then turned and walked from the awning.

The minister who delivered the grave side service kept my tears flowing.

"We are here today to lay to rest Sergeant William Randolph Brooks. Most of you know him as just Bill, but he was much more than just the man who built your house and who always had a smile on his face. Bill was a hero of The Second World War. He lied about his age and enlisted in the US Army when he was only seventeen. Bill was in the first wave of Army troops that assaulted the beaches of Normandy. He was wounded three times before the war was over and proved his courage too many times to count, but he didn't use that to his advantage.

"Those of you who've served might have heard him talk about those days a little, but Bill preferred to just be a good husband, a good father, a good carpenter and a good neighbor. I would imagine most of us had our lives changed because of something Bill did. Bill was just that type of man, a good, quiet man who led a good life and passed a little of his goodness on to everyone he met.

"I spoke with Bill the day before he passed. He knew his time was near and asked me to only say a prayer at his funeral service instead of an elegy. He didn't want any mention of his medals either. He told me the medals should have gone to the men to didn't come home because they'd helped him stay alive though it all.

Bill didn't want to be given any special honor, but he deserves the honor he didn't want. To give him that honor, I'll recite a poem by Charles M. Province that says more than my feeble attempts at praise could ever achieve."

He then lifted a paper from his bible and began to read.

"It is the Veteran, not the minister

Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Veteran, not the reporter

Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Veteran, not the poet

Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Veteran, not the campus organizer

Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Veteran, not the lawyer

Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Veteran, not the politician

Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Veteran who salutes the flag,

Who serves beneath the flag,

And whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who allows the protester to burn the flag."

The paper he was reading from was the funeral pamphlet Alice had had printed, and that poem was there because it was the same poem another preacher had read at her husband's funeral fifty years before. It made me remember how Bill had changed my life too.

Fifty-one years before, when we were both seniors in high school, I dated Alice, and it was through her I met her father. I thought he was an OK guy, though he seemed a little gruff sometimes.

Alice was dating a couple other guys besides me, so we had somewhat of a competition for her going. Wanting to improve my chances, I asked her dad what Alice was looking for in a man. In retrospect, it seems like a stupid thing to do, but I was seventeen then and I was pretty stupid.

Her dad wouldn't answer me. He just said I needed to grow up before I thought about what any woman wanted.

Well, looking back, that was true. My own dad had left me with mom after they divorced and he never came back. Their's was one of those WWII marriages. Every girl thought it was her patriotic duty to marry a soldier before he was shipped overseas. Most of those marriages survived. Mom's didn't. She re-married and Jack was an OK guy, but he never treated me like a son. As a result, I was pretty wild.

I got into trouble frequently, not bad trouble, but a couple of times Jack had to come down to the police station to get me. He'd just frown once we got in the car and ask me if I felt like a dumb shit for doing what I'd done. That was it, no punishment, no threat about what would happen if I did it again, just did I feel like a dumb shit.

When I asked Alice's dad that day what he meant, he smiled.

"I was like you once, always into some type of trouble. I thought I was a real bad-ass then. I'd have probably ended up in jail if Japan hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor. I was fourteen at the time and everybody who was old enough was enlisting. I couldn't because I wasn't old enough, and it felt like I wasn't doing my part. When I turned seventeen, I went down and enlisted too. Had to lie and add a year to my real age, but they took me."

He chuckled then.

"They'd take anybody who was warm and had a pulse back then."

"I went through Basic Training and then trained to be an infantryman. By the time they shipped my ass off to England, I figured I was a man and could take on anything and anybody. I was wrong, but that's what I thought. You need to get your head on straight. The Army would do that for you."

As it turned out, I didn't have any choice in the matter. The day I turned eighteen I registered for the draft, and a month later I got my draft notice in the mail. After spending most of a day in my underwear while the Army doctors checked me out, I was sworn into the US Army and became Private Matthew James Ferguson. That night, I got on a plane with about a hundred other draftees and flew to Fort Dix, New Jersey for Basic Training.

It wasn't a big surprise when the Army decided 11B - Combat Infantry - was going to be my MOS. Vietnam was still going strong and the Army needed ground troops. If you didn't have some education or special skill, that's where most draftees ended up. I didn't have either. After Advanced Infantry Training, I had a ten day leave before I shipped out to Vietnam.

Ricky Fansler, my best friend all through school, was four months younger than I, so he was home while I was in training. When I came back for my leave before shipping out, I found out he and Alice were engaged. I was happy for them both because Alice was a nice girl and she could have done a lot worse than Ricky.

I was in Vietnam and learning the instructors in AIT and been right when Ricky wrote me that he'd been drafted too. Ricky had been sent to Infantry training, but he was smarter than I was, or so he thought. He had to re-enlist for another four years to do it, but after Infantry training, he went to two different vehicle maintenance schools. He thought he might go to Germany since the Army had a lot of tanks and trucks over there, but the Army often works in strange and mysterious ways. He ended up in Vietnam and assigned to the motor pool that served my unit.

Ricky and Alice got married during his leave, and had two weeks together before he flew into Ton Son Nhut Air Base. I knew he was coming, so I was waiting for him when he got to the replacement center. He was happy to see me and I was happy to see him. I was even happier when he was assigned to my unit's motor pool.

Because we were supposedly in support of the South Vietnamese Army by then, our primary role was defending our compound. Apparently nobody had told the NVA we weren't there to fight. They'd probe our defenses at least once a week and as a result, every man in my compound was an infantryman first and whatever else he did second except for the medics. Medics were always medics, though more than one had some rifle time when we were attacked.

It was because Ricky was a good friend that I tried to teach him everything I'd learned. Most new guys didn't get that. They had to learn on their own because nobody wanted to get close to a new guy until they were reasonably sure he wasn't going to get himself and probably them killed. I understood that. It was hard to see a man die, but you sort of got used to it. If that man was a friend, it was a lot harder.

We had almost three months together before I got back on a plane at Ton Son Nhut and flew home. It was hard to leave Ricky, but he'd learned how to keep his shit wired and I wasn't too worried about him. We'd gone through a few firefights together, and he'd done as well as anybody.

By the time my tour was over, I realized the Army hadn't made a man out of me, but combat had. Before I went to Vietnam, I was cocky and like Alice's dad had said, thought I could take on anything and anybody. After the first fire-fight, I realized that even with the skills I'd been taught, about all I could do was keep my head down, learn how things really happen in combat, and hope I could kill the other guy before he killed me. Realizing you're so small relative to what's going on, how little you really know, and being in a country so different from the US changes you in ways you wouldn't believe possible. It made me pretty humble and also made me appreciate what I'd always taken for granted.

The other change was what I thought about the Army. The term of service for a draftee was two years and by the time I left Vietnam, I'd only served about seventeen months. Before I went to Vietnam, I'd been indoctrinated in and had to follow all the bullshit regulations of the Army. I hadn't enjoyed all that, but it was good for me because it gave direction and structure to my life.

In Vietnam, most of those regulations were pretty much tossed out the window. A sergeant or Lieutenant didn't care that he outranked you. What he cared about was making sure all of us, especially him, went home alive and in one piece. The way to help that happen was to forget about rank unless the brass was around and concentrate on building a team of men who looked out for each other.

I knew after a year in Vietnam I would never fit back into the spit and polish of the stateside Army. Rank meant everything in the States. Rank meant you were somehow better than the men you out-ranked. It didn't mean anything in Vietnam, and it especially didn't mean what kind of man you were. I'd seen captains turn tail and run while two privates stood their ground and kept us from being overrun.

Thankfully, by the time I got to Fort Lewis, the Army had more troops coming back from Vietnam than they slots to fill. I was mustered out at Fort Lewis, and got on a plane for home as a civilian. I was still in uniform because those were the only clothes I had, but I wasn't in the Army anymore.

I was home and trying to figure out what I was going to do next when I saw Alice at the grocery store. She smiled and asked how I was doing.

"Hi Matt. Ricky wrote and said you two had hooked up. He was so happy you did. He didn't know anybody over there and he said you helped him. Now that you're back home, I don't think he feels as safe now."

I just grinned.

"Ricky can take care of himself. He learned fast so don't worry. He'll be home in another nine months, maybe sooner because they're pulling troops out pretty fast now."

As it turned out, Ricky came home three weeks after that...in an aluminum coffin. I found that out because Alice called me the day after the officers from Fort Campbell came and notified her.

"Matt, I don't know how to tell you this but yesterday some Army officers came to see me. Ricky is..."

I heard Alice sob and then nothing for a couple of minutes except her crying. She was still sniffing when she spoke again.

"Ricky was killed in action the day before yesterday. You were his best friend so I know he'd want you to know so you'd be at his funeral. Would you come with me? I think Ricky would like that."

We buried Ricky in Shady Rest Cemetary. It was a military funeral with an Honor Guard, Rifle Squad, and a bugler who came from Fort Campbell. Alice only sobbed a couple of times during the service. She thanked the Lieutenant for the flag and then sniffed a little while the preacher read the same poem I wrote about before.

When the service was over, she put one rose on Ricky's casket and then asked if I'd walk her to her car.

When we got to her car, she turned, looked at me, and then burst into tears. I didn't know what to do when she sagged against my chest, so I put my arms around her and held her while she sobbed.

When she finally stopped, my jacket was wet and her eyes were red. She blew her nose in a tissue from her purse, and then looked up at me again.

"Matt, I'm sorry. I didn't want to do that during the funeral, but I couldn't hold it in any longer. Thanks for staying with me. I'm sure Ricky would appreciate you taking care of me like this."

It felt weird to still have Alice in my arms, so I let her go and gently held her shoulders.

"Alice, Ricky was the best friend I ever had. If you need anything, anything at all, you call me, OK? I'll take care of it. It's the least I can do for him."

Alice wiped her eyes again, and then gave me a half-smile.

"I might need you to do that. I'm almost four months pregnant with Ricky's baby. I didn't tell Ricky yet because I didn't want him to worry about me."