Generations

This Memorial Day was different. At the National Memorial Day Concert on television, a young Marine stood at attention during the playing of the Marine Corps hymn. He was missing both of his arms due to combat injuries…. “Always Faithful, Semper Fi” I heard “In Flanders Fields” read and “Taps” played again for what seemed like the millionth time, but this year I really heard them. The sound of a lone bugle playing that somber melody has always touched me. This year I heard the blood in those words and in those notes, and I saw the tears in those salutes.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place, and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard among the guns below.

I was the first in my generation not to serve in the Armed Forces. Many of my relatives served in both World Wars and in Vietnam. My great-grandfather, who lived to the age of 105, was an Army doctor in World Wars I and II. I was told that he went on the second wave of D-Day to clean up after the first wave. I can only imagine what that could have felt like. I am told that he never talked about that much to anyone; he pretty much skipped over that part of his military history in conversations. My grandfather on my dad’s side earned a Purple Heart over in the Pacific in World War II, while my grandfather on my mother’s side was in the Navy on a refueling station over in Singapore during that same war. My dad spent time in the Air Force, and was in a communications unit in Vietnam during the late 1960’s.