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This coming weekend we will celebrate Memorial Day, one of those long multiple-day holidays decreed by Congress. On Memorial Day we honor an idea instead of a historic happening, as we do on the Fourth of July or Christmas. It is a day for welcoming the summer season, especially by those engaged in the tourist trade. Too many of us forget that it is a day to recall why the blood-red stripe is part of our flag.
My recollections are over 50 years old, of a time when my generation and I went off to defend our country in such exotic places as North Africa, Kwajelein and Normandy. I think of friends, classmates, men -- boys, really -- who never hesitated to leave all youthful joys, home, friends, college, whatever, behind them because they felt an obligation to face the enemies that had dared to defile their country. It may sound corny today, but then we really meant it.
Some of them -- too many of them -- had a rendezvous with death at some disputed barricade. Others were forever ill or in pain. Others faced dreams that awoke them in the night.
Those who returned whole carried on what we like to call "normal lives." We wed the girls we left behind, went into business, had kids of our own, and learned to love, make deals, harvest our crops in season -- all sorts of things. Some of us went on to become famous people, even presidents; others succumbed to earthly temptations and fell by the way.
Perhaps, in a way, the ones who spilled their life's blood into the sea or behind a hedgerow were the lucky ones. With firm bodies, filled with the vigor of youth and hopes for the future and the world, feeling the invincibility of the young, they had quick and painless deaths. Perhaps. They never knew the advancing infirmities caused by the artillery of time. They really didn't know what disappointments life would offer.
When, in the course of welcoming in summer, you hear the haunting sound of a bugler blowing taps, pause for a moment, turn away from the barbecue grill, and think of those young men and women who gave their lives so that we, today, can enjoy what their valor won.
As I have done in previous years, I offer the following sonnet, written by Elma Dean in a November 1942 issue of American Mercury magazine. In this 14-line chanson royale she sums up all that I have been trying to express.
Letter to Saint Peter
Let them in, Peter, they are very tired;
Give them the couches where the angels sleep.
Let them wake whole again to new dawns fired
With sun not war. And may their peace be deep.
Remember where the broken bodies lie ...
And give them things they like. Let them make noise
God knows how young they were to have to die!
Give swing bands, not gold harps, to these our boys.
Let them love, Peter, -- they have had no time --
Girls sweet as meadow wind, with flowing hair ...
They should have trees and bird song, hills to climb --
The taste of summer in a ripened pear.
Tell them they are missed. Say not to fear,
It's going to be all right with us down here.
By Elma Dean