The parade had stepped off with all the usual fanfare: police and military honor guards, school bands, floats with local ethnic singers and bands performing on them, civic clubs for our children and young people walking by, the military hardware, the jet flyover, the fire and rescue vehicles, the funny motorcycle clowns.
Then something unusual and extraordinary appeared: about a dozen people were carrying black poles between pairs of them. From these poles pictures of military people were secured. They blew freely in the slight breeze, like little flags. No signs, no banners, no explanation, but we all knew what this meant. Applause instantly broke out amongst us, and continued, until the display had passed us. (They were pictures of all but one of the 155 of our Michigan veterans who have died in Iraq.)
This is what Memorial Day is all about.
Here were the faces of those young people who had paid the price of their lives for our freedom and protection. They weren’t numbers; they weren’t statistics. A face had been put to the price. These were the lovely faces of somebodies’ sons, of somebodies’ daughters. Here was represented the ultimate sacrifice of somebody’s family, of a son or a daughter destined and dreamed by their parents for something great and wonderful in this world. (The parents would have never dreamed nor wished that this was the way their dreams were to be fulfilled!)
My son called me from Alaska later that day, and we discussed the parade. Tim is going to be a veteran some day. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in a parade up there, he said. The presence of so many military installations may have done “overkill” on the need to incite patriotism. They live with it all the time.
I recalled memories to Tim of the oldest veterans that I have seen, from my childhood in Plymouth. There were fellas from the Spanish-American War, too old to walk, riding in “modern” 50’s-era cars. There was still a nice bunch of World War I veterans, many of them still marching on the streets. World War II and Korean War vets were too many to count! Now, these are the fellas who are too old to walk, riding in fancy, new cars. Time eventually carries them all away.
In our memories, never! Here are our friends, who gave up their youth, that we might have a free country. Be grateful. Remember.
Jesus gave this same sacrifice. One day, everyone will see His face, the Greatest Veteran of all time! “Lord, come quickly!”
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