Picture from The Memory Hole
The US Department of Defense does not want you to see pictures like this. Photographs and videos are not permitted at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the bodies come in. The coffins are still coming, 103 killed just this month, for a total of 3454 for the Iraq War. When will it end? When will the bodies stop coming?
From CBS News on April 23, 2004:
Under a policy adopted in 1991, the Pentagon bars news organizations from photographing caskets being returned to the United States, saying publication of such photos would be insensitive to bereaved families.
This policy still stands, for whatever reason, and serves to insulate the American public from the consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Memorial Day is a day of remembrance of those who gave everything in the service of their country. We honor them for their courage and dedication to duty. We extend our sympathy to their families and friends, whether the loss is recent or from long times past. We stand with you. We mourn with you.
Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. Micah 4:1-4
Lord God, Almighty and Everlasting Father, we pray for all those who have died in wars. We pray the they may rest in peace in the perpetual light of your love. We pray for your blessing upon the families and friends of all those who have died in service to their country. Console them for their aching loss. Bring them healing of body, mind, and spirit. Give them strength and courage to go forward, and Lord God, above all else, give them your peace that passes understanding to keep their minds and hearts.
I remember today my younger brother, Robert, who served twenty years in the Air Force... most of it in Viet Nam. He died not in combat but nonetheless was a casualty of that war. He died by his own hand after returning home. Like so many of the veterans of that war, he could not go on... remembering all that he had seen and lived through. He was my only brother, and I never told him how much I loved him. I am so very sorry about that. Even afteer all these years, I still miss him a lot.
ReplyDeleteToday, I hope everyone spends some time remembering all those who were close to them and who were lost to the evil that drives humanity to fight wars. Just think of that great multitude!
I pray that they remember us also.
David, your brother was as much a casualty of the Vietnam War as if he had been killed in the war. A whole new crop of the terribly wounded in body and spirit are here and still coming because of the present hostilities.
ReplyDeleteI believe that your brother knows that you love him.
A very thoughtful and well done tribute, Grandmere Mimi.
ReplyDeleteSplendid, Mimi. You nailed it, as usual.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Missy and Ed.
ReplyDeleteAs I was writing the post, I felt anger rising withing me, but I thought it would be totally inappropriate for a tribute to the fallen to be about my anger. I tried not to let it get into the post, but I'm not sure I was entirely successful. The passage from Micah was a help.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteFive years ago, when my uncle, my mother's only brother, died, my mom and I flew from Seattle to Carson City, Nevada to take care of his affairs.
ReplyDeleteTucked in a corner of his home, was a chest that contained his WWII memorabilia. This included a hand written recounting of his capture during the Battle of the Bulge.
I spent part of yesterday and today, finally getting around to entering the story into a Word document. The story begins three days before Christmas Day '44 and ends abruptly on Christmas Day, prior to my uncle and the other POWs arrival to the camp. As we all know, reluctance of telling these tales is common place among the WWII vets.
I do recall my uncle once telling me of being in the POW camp and watching as the German guards took a wagon filled with ill Russian soldiers out of sight, followed by the sound of gunfire, with the return of the empty wagon shortly thereafter.
Each generation faces its challenges, and we certainly owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have paid a price beyond what we can imagine.
KJ, your uncle told you more than many of those who served during wartime. Perhaps they did not think those who had not served would understand. Perhaps they're right.
ReplyDeleteI had a relative who had been - as they called in WWII - shell-shocked. The experience dogged him for the rest of his life. Periodically, he had to check into mental hospitals, but he never talked about what caused him to go over the edge.
Yep, you nailed it! Thanks. And I agree that David's brother knows he loves him.
ReplyDeleteKJ, what an experience that must be for you to read that account written by your uncle. And transcribing it to the computer a real act of tribute on Memorial day.
ReplyDeleteKJ, I meant to say, with Dennis, that I can think of no better way for you to pay tribute to the memory of your uncle than to preserve his account of his time as a prisoner of war.
ReplyDeleteThe D-Day Museum in New Orleans might be interested in your uncle's account. The museum is not only concerned with D-Day materials, but in all WWII records.
Serena, you have a lovely blog.
Hi, ma cher,
ReplyDeleteI've been roaming around today with you and your post on my mind and heart: mostly a very good day, thank you.
It's a beautiful photograph, and ought to be as well-known as some of those images from our war--the napalmed child (Le thi Kim Phuc--she's Canadian/iene, and does good work. She has no sweat glands.). That's what our leaders learned from Vietnam; don't show us the pictures. It might upset us enough to stop them. That's what they have been applying in this war, and has been glaringly obvious to anyone paying reasonable attention since this President was not elected, but chosen, in the first place. And now, once again, our political leaders on both sides can't find the courage to do the right thing instead of the smart thing.
Let us ponder the words of a past saint, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones: ""Sit down. Read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts." I've started the political journals of the great New Yorker and PBS reporter
Elizabeth Drew that she kept, at Willaim Shawn's urging, from The Saturday Night Massacre to the Hounding From Office the following Summer, though it's hard to resist Gore's *The Assault on Reason*. I admire the way Gore has responded to all this very much; I believe he'd be a great president if he'd do it.
Still, it's not primarily (yes, it was) about who's President, except for the current catastrophe, but about ourselves as peacemakers first (like the term? I made it up.) --the ongoing labor, eh? but not to be avoided for all that. Take that with you, and do what you will, to paraphrase (steal from the best).
For me, the struggle is first to accept the Peace of Christ, which passes understanding, when I have been deeply hurt, and have grieved my life for forty two years as I wa living it, and I am thus very angry with all of you for this; "sorry 'bout that". How has it been I have never quite been able to say this, in any way, but feel it so deeply? I am angry with you, and especially for allowing this kind of thing to continue to happen ever since it happened to me. How could you do it?
Thanks for the soapbox, ma cher grandmere Mimi. Have a happy fucking Memorial Day this year, everybody.
Johnieb, I'm glad it was mostly a good day for you. It's been a very sad day for me, not a holiday at all.
ReplyDeleteSpeak your anger. I'm angry, too. How could we do this again? I don't know the answer.
Even though I saw from the beginning that the war would be a disaster, and I did what I could do, which was little more than speak out, I feel, in some manner, complicit.
People I argued with back in the run-up to war have come to tell me I was right, but what good does that do? I didn't want to be right. I wanted us not to go into this bloody, endless disaster of a war.
Ah, ma cher,
ReplyDeletequickly; I'm calling my mama, who'll be ninety-one in a month, thanks.
Say you're angry, and love you for allowing me to be!
Peace/ Hoa Binh
Grandmere Mimi
ReplyDeleteI found an animated version of Mark Twain's "War Prayer" which I just posted over at my place. It is animated but it is disturbing. But all violence is disturbing. If you are up to seeing it I thought I would come over and mention it to you.
How could we do this again indeed! And, how could we not be angry! Thanks again for this .. and for stopping by my place Grandmere Mimi!
ReplyDeleteYou may want to go to Dennis' place to see the animation and hear the words of Twain's War Prayer spoken aloud.
ReplyDeleteOh, Mimi....how do you do it? You put the elements together that express my feelings. I wish I were as able as you. But of course, today was not about me. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteSusan, thanks. Pride is sinful, I know, but I take some satisfaction in the way this post turned out. I wanted to honor the fallen without glorifying war.
ReplyDeleteI spent part of yesterday with my father.
ReplyDeleteHe's a Viet Nam vet.
For years he didn't go to church.
Now he can't stop going.
He's angry. He's constantly at confession.
Yesterday, my mil was urging my dad to tell Jake and Jenna about his experiences.
Her ignorance about what it was that she was asking him to do made me squirm.
War stories aren't for children.
And for some people, talking about it doesn't heal it - doesn't even come close.
My dad looked so far away when she was talking to him about it.
A woman, who has had NO member of her immediate family in the military - never mind a war.
I told my father I hate the Iraq war.
What I hate more is how broken and messed up we are as a species, that there is nothing we can do to prevent from being there, nor to prevent another thing like this from happening in the future.
My dad told me no one hates a war more than a soldier. All the decisions are out of his hands - he's just got a job to do at someone else's whimsy.
In order for war to cease, humanity needs to come up with something that will replace it - and yet maintain order.
I have no clue what that is, and it breaks my heart.
My dad was 19 when he went to Nam.
He came back ancient.
Eileen, what a sad story. His is one among so many of those who came back alive, but wounded in spirit. I grieve for those like him and those wounded and scarred in body. I grieve that after serving they were not treated well by their country.
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful that with this war, we distinguish between the powers-that-be, those who give the orders, and those who serve in the lower orders.
I must be terribly naive, because I truly thought we would not go into another ill-conceived, unwinable, monstrous disaster of a war.
Makes me think of lyrics from Sting's song Fragile:
ReplyDeleteIf blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are