Memorial Day May 26, 2003

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[thedrifter]

Military Vets Motorcycle to Arlington Cemetery
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2003 – Arlington National Cemetery is a quiet place where military veterans lie in peace among slim, white marble tombstones that in the springtime array like troops in formation across the rolling fields of green.

Today, however, the staccato thunder of legions of motorcycle exhausts echoed across these normally placid environs, as an army of leather- and denim-clad veterans rolled in on their Harleys, Hondas, Kawasakis and BMWs.

"Rolling Thunder" had indeed arrived at the cemetery, a stone's throw across the Potomac River from the nation's capital.

The non-profit group -- accompanied by thousands of other motorcyclists from across the country -- biked to Arlington to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

Rolling Thunder member Bill Newby, 56, a disabled Navy Vietnam veteran from Knoxville, Tenn., noted that the organization was making its 16th annual trek to Washington.

He explained that Rolling Thunder uses motorcycles to publicize the prisoner of war/missing in action issue and to educate the public. He added that the group "is also committed to helping disabled veterans from all wars."

Newby considers the POW-MIA issue a personal one, noting, "I've got friends who've not only died, I've got friends who haven't been accounted for."

In fact, the organization's annual Run for the Wall, Newby pointed out, features thousands of motorcyclist-veterans from Rolling Thunder -- and other motorcycle clubs across the nation – who motor to Washington regularly to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and to take part in other activities to raise public consciousness about the POW-MIA issue.

Most biking veterans at Arlington – including Newby -- were festooned with military awards earned in previous wars. Now graying and a step or two slower than in their prime, they remain fiercely patriotic – and approving of the war against global terrorism.

Newby, for one, emphasized that "we ought to do it and get it over with … and not pull back," regarding U.S. and coalition military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to defeat global terrorism.

To Gail Ferrell, a member of the Southern Cruisers motorcycle club out of Raleigh, N.C., this year's ride to Washington "symbolizes freedom and what we're fighting for -- and all the men and women that have died for our country."

America's service men and women "are doing a wonderful job" in the war on terror, she asserted, adding, "they're fighting for us and we should stand up for them and do whatever we can to help them."

Keith Parker, another Southern Cruisers member, from Willow Spring, N.C., said he was heartened by the successful rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch and fellow soldiers formerly held as POWs during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"Anytime we have any of our soldiers captured or taken into custody like that … we need to go get them," Parker, another Navy Vietnam veteran, noted. The rescue of Lynch and comrades was "a heroic thing for Americans to do and it's heroic for (the former POWs) to survive it and come out."

And concerning the war against terrorism, Parker asserted, "Let's go get them … everywhere."

However, "we've got a long ways to go," Parker acknowledged, noting there are "a lot of (people) in the world who'd like to destroy us -- for our freedoms."

Those responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Parker said, were wrong in thinking such an assault would sap Americans' resolve to confront terrorism.

"We're going to make sure they don't go it again," he concluded.

Sempers,

Roger

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[thedrifter]

Article ran : 05/26/2003
A worthy prayer on Memorial Day

Toward the end of the 20th century - perhaps lulled by a couple of relatively tranquil decades - the real meaning of Memorial Day appeared to lose some of its immediacy for all but veterans and their families.

It seemed possible, as the new century dawned, that America might never have to fight a war again. We had no enemies that we knew of - until Sept. 11, 2001.

Now, this Memorial Day, like last year's, has a special poignancy, a much deeper significance than simply a three-day weekend that kicks off summer.

The battles for Iraq and Afghanistan in our ongoing war on terrorism have harshly reminded us that our freedom comes at a price and that it is the men and women of our armed forces that are called upon to pay that price for all of us.

In our past, Americans had a certain emotional distance from war. News, good and bad, traveled slowly. But in Iraq, as blessedly quick as the fighting was, that was not the case. The immediacy of the print and TV reporting forcefully reminded us that war remains a harsh and brutal business.

Even in Iraq, where the outcome was never in doubt, war is no sure thing. Things go wrong; accidents happen; "friendly fire" is no less real for being a ghastly oxymoron. Still, our armed forces are a military to be proud of for their professionalism and humanity. It speaks highly of our military that throughout most of Iraq, when Saddam Hussein's thugs were absent, they were welcomed as liberators.

We want our men and women in uniform to come safely home, as many will today when the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit returns to Camp Lejeune and New River Air Station. We want our service members here to participate in the parades, the barbecues, the trips to the beach. But today, we honor those who have made it through the scourge of war by paying tribute to those who did not. In every case these were men and women of courage and dignity whose potential to contribute to the world was sadly cut short. It is also a day for us to remember that long line of fallen countrymen stretching from the center of Baghdad to the road at Lexington and Concord.

Each person killed in the cause of liberty and the service of this nation leaves behind family, friends and loved ones whose lives will be forever affected by their sacrifice. It is, therefore, altogether fitting that today honors their sacrifice as well.

Each Memorial Day, the leaders of this nation ask Americans to pray for peace. Few prayers are more worthwhile.


Sempers,

Roger

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[thedrifter]

A day of remembrance

By Frank J. Murray and Jon Ward
The Washinton Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030525-115507-9886r.htm


Not all Americans pay serious heed to the reasons for Memorial Day. Like the burden of fighting wars, remembering the dead often is left to the few, including those who love them. Douglas C. Payne, 53, says he never has forgotten to remember the fellow Marine who died saving his life in Vietnam more than 34 years ago. And he is haunted by doubt that the life he now lives is worth the sacrifice that earned his buddy, Pfc. Oscar P. Austin, a posthumous Medal of Honor.

"The first time I met any of his family I was feeling guilty, oh yeah," Mr. Payne recalls. "And I could see where his family would feel that I wasn't worth him giving his life for me."

On Feb. 23, 1969, Pfc. Austin scrambled out of a safe foxhole and, with his own body, shielded the injured and unconscious Mr. Payne, then a 19-year-old lance corporal, from a hand grenade and rifle fire.

The mortally wounded Pfc. Austin shot a North Vietnamese soldier who was storming their position, then fell dead 39 days past his 21st birthday.

Mr. Payne has traveled to Washington from California over the years to touch Oscar's name on Panel 32W Row 88 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He has left letters and thanks at the Wall for a life that he concedes wavered into alcoholism and despair before he regained his balance.

Families of wartime dead and veterans like Mr. Payne know precisely how to observe this Memorial Day, when newly turned earth lies raw on military graves resulting from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, which took 248 U.S. lives.

Elite soldiers of the Old Guard placed individual American flags over the weekend at each grave in Arlington National Cemetery's gardens of stone.

Today at 11 a.m., President Bush plans to lay a wreath at Arlington and express a grateful nation's homage, then meet with families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Communities across the land prepared for ceremonies, parades and other rituals of remembrance today. At 3 p.m. local time much of the nation will be asked to pause at airports, sports stadiums, shopping malls and other public places for the "minute of reflection" that became a fixture in recent years.

An estimated 35 million Americans were expected to travel during the long holiday weekend. For some 162,000 Washington-area families, the only memorial in mind was Lane Memorial Bridge and getting across the Chesapeake on that span's busiest weekend of the year.

Then and now

It was just that way for Deborah Peterson of Alexandria until Oct. 23, 1983, when Islamic Jihad terrorists drove more than a ton of TNT into a U.S. military barracks in Beirut. The 241 soldiers, sailors and Marines killed there included her 20-year-old brother, Marine Cpl. James C. Knipple.

"Until then, except for our father who was in the Navy, we were just very typical, complacent Americans who thought of Memorial Day as the opening day of the pool and a three-day weekend and a barbecue," says Mrs. Peterson, who works in the pharmacy at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. "Now we go up to the cemetery very often. I haven't worked a Memorial Day for 20 years."

She says the family also visits Arlington National Cemetery each Oct. 23 — "the day of remembrance" for the Beirut famil     It is in Section 59 that 21 of the Beirut dead lie, along with two of the 19 U.S. servicemen killed June 26, 1996, in a similar terrorist bombing at the Khobar Towers military complex in Dharan, Saudi Arabia.

At a ceremony in 1996 near the cedars of Lebanon planted in Section 59, the Knipple clan befriended Fran and Gary Heiser beside the grave of their son, Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Michael Heiser. He was 25 when he died in Khobar Towers.

"I used to go to Arlington maybe once a year. Now I stay home and pout and feel sorry for myself," Mrs. Heiser says in a lighthearted way.

What she and her husband, a retired Air Force sergeant major, actually do is roam every month or so from their north Florida house in a motor home, making new acquaintances who blessedly don't know or ask what happened to their son and only child.

"It's forced recreation, rather than stay home and watch the world crumble," Mrs. Heiser says, and Memorial Day plans this year don't include visiting their son's grave at Arlington or memorials at Patrick and Maxwell air bases.

How long does it takes for such a loss to heal?

"I think the pain probably never goes away," Mrs. Heiser says. "I don't know, but that's what I'm thinking. Not yet."

The distance to go

Cpl. Knipple's mother, Pauline Knipple of Alexandria, says the passage of 20 years hasn't lessened the loss much.

"It gets better, but it doesn't ever go away," says Mrs. Knipple, whose rheumatoid arthritis keeps her in a wheelchair. "Just talking about Jim's going and dying will start me crying when I say what a great kid he was, or when I see him in my mind practicing football at Jefferson High.

"My heart aches because I know there's people out there who have to go that distance to get to where they have to accept the heartache, because you don't have a choice, you know."

Memories remain fresh as well for Frank and Judy Adamouski of Springfield, Va. This morning they planned to walk the grounds of Arlington, where they last saw their son alive at a friend's funeral New Year's Eve — and where they buried him April 24.

The grave of Army Capt. James F. Adamouski, 29, is in Section 60, a flat, low field, beside those of 19 other troopers killed in central Iraq. Capt. Adamouski was one of six soldiers who died when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed April 2 north of Karbala.

An experienced helicopter pilot whose home base was Fort Stewart, Ga., Capt. Adamouski was not flying the Black Hawk when it went down. He left behind a wife, Meighan, who had married him just seven months before, in addition to his parents and three sisters.

"It's a great loss for us as a family, but we both could see outside that — that as a society, that's the price we pay.

A loss so overwhelming'

Some professional soldiers despair that the nation ever will properly recognize the sacrifices of the armed forces, in which "all gave some, some gave all."

Each death was individual, but the overall numbers are immense: The Pentagon counts 1.04 million Americans in uniform killed in wars since 1775, and 617,388 of those in the 20th century. More than 87 percent were in the Army.

That terrible official toll does not include military deaths in accidents, training mishaps or terrorism such as the September 11 attack on the Pentagon. Nor does it include daring expeditions like the attempted rescue of hostages in Iran (eight dead), or such half-forgotten operations as "Urgent Fury" in Grenada (19), "Just Cause" in Panama (23), "Restore Hope" in Somalia (43), or "Uphold Democracy" in Haiti (four).

The total includes 364,511 Union troops killed in the Civil War, but the Pentagon does not estimate Confederate deaths. Historian Thomas L. Livermore, a leading authority on Civil War casualties, estimates the Confederate dead at 258,000.

The Civil War gave birth on both sides to the custom of decorating warriors' graves. Residents of dozens of Southern cities scattered spring flowers on Confederate graves in 1866. Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi still observe Confederate Memorial Day in April.

Historians trace today's Memorial Day tradition to the "Decoration Day" turnout on May 30, 1868. Army Maj. Gen. John A. Logan had ordered a nationwide observance, including at Arlington, where the first military burial was held four years earlier. Gen. Logan proclaimed "the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion."

A 1971 law moved several national holidays to convenient Mondays, including the century-old May 30 observance, by then renamed Memorial Day. That law still nettles some traditionalists.

"Memorial Day is not the day to remember troops who died to protect our freedoms the way it used to be. It's just another day off, but I'd say the same about Presidents Day," says retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who capped a 29-year military career by serving as the first President Bush's national security adviser. "I know when I was growing up as a kid, Memorial Day meant something."

President Abraham Lincoln struggled to describe that meaning in his Nov. 21, 1864, letter to Lydia Bixby of Boston, who lost five sons in battle during the Civil War, still reckoned as the nation's costliest in human terms.

"I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save," Lincoln wrote of those sacrificed "upon the altar of freedom."

Continued...............

[thedrifter]

The cards dealt

Capt. Adamouski, a 1995 graduate of West Point who made a home with his wife in Savannah, came from a family that understood such sacrifice. His father, a retired lieutenant colonel, saw combat during 23 years in the Army and continues to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to honor soldiers he commanded.

"I'm going to make sure you get a funeral like this one," Capt. Adamouski had told his dad after the New Year's Eve funeral at Arlington for his friend. Four months later, it became instead the father's duty for the son.

"It's ironic that I made sure he got a funeral like that," says Col. Adamouski, who calls himself heartbroken. "Sometimes the cards get dealt in a funny way."

Today's trip to Arlington will be Col. Adamouski's second since his son was buried, and he says he lost control of his emotions last time. His wife went several other times. When they returned together early this month, Mrs. Adamouski brought flowers and placed them at the 20 graves for soldiers killed in Iraq.

The grave of James Adamouski is not yet marked by a white headstone. A temporary green sign bears the officer's name along with the dates he entered this life and left it.

"We go and we say a private prayer and we have a lot of thoughts," Col. Adamouski says. "We have all of those questions that you can't get answers to. ... I guess I'll always do that."

For his daughter-in-law, Meighan, Memorial Day had meant "going to the beach and playing volleyball" — until she attende     "Now I think I understand where that's coming from," the young widow says.

A fourth-grade teacher in special education, she is moving in with her in-laws and will study public administration at George Mason University. She has been unable to bring herself to visit her husband's grave since the funeral.

"I want to wait a bit. And I want to do it myself," she says. "That's a personal time that I want to be by myself. I'll probably cry, and laugh."

'To be so brave'

Although eligible for burial at Arlington in 1969, Oscar Palmer Austin was buried far away in Phoenix's Greenwood Memorial Park.

The Marine private's memory lives on in the Navy's ultramodern Aegis Guided Missile Destroyer DDG-79 that bears his name, and at a stone monument outside the county hospital in his native Nacogdoches, Texas. For $50, those browsing www.historyshopping.com can get an embroidered polo shirt bearing an image of the $800 million ship.

The monument in Nacogdoches includes his name and photo with the inscription: "An honor to one, a tribute to all, who sacrificed for our freedom."

Leslie Enright, 35, a country fiddler and something of a local celebrity, was asked in December by the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel to list the four persons she admired most. She named her husband, Arthur; George W. Bush; Martha Stewart; and Oscar Austin.

"It's such a compelling story, just what an ordinary person put in that situation chooses to do," Mrs. Enright says in an interview with The Washington Times. "To be so young and to be so brave as he was — it's all about loving others more than yourself."

She met Pfc. Austin's family when her husband, a general contractor, did some work at the Austin house and they befriended his mother.

"In this part of the country, there are not only memorial services but parades," Mrs. Enright says. "Veterans Day and Memorial Day are fairly big deals down here, but for some people it's a barbecue."

Lives intersect

Oscar Austin was a boy when his family moved to Arizona. He became a Marine machine-gunner in April 1968, almost a year after graduating from Phoenix Union High School.

He returned from Vietnam less than a year later in a casket, shredded by the grenade and bullets meant for Lance Cpl. Douglas C. Payne, his 5-foot-4, 120-pound sidekick.

"I was raised away up in the middle of nowhere. I never had any friends of another race or anything," Mr. Payne says in an interview from his modest Tanglebob Ranch in Anza, Calif., near San Diego. "I was incredibly naive, and he was the first black man I'd ever met."

Today Mr. Payne raises eight quarterhorses to race, and he named one Oscar. "If ever I had a son I was going to name him [Oscar], but I didn't," he says.

Oscar Austin's mother, Mildred, moved back to Texas in 1980 and made part of her house in Sand Hill a shrine. It included her son's Medal of Honor with distinctive blue ribbon and a large photo of him in Marine dress blues.

"We called the living room 'the museum,'" says Pfc. Austin's sister, Bobbie Garrett, now a retired teacher who lives in Houston. "Granny mourned my brother so much; she never got over it."

Mrs. Garrett is grateful their mother lived long enough to attend the christening ceremony at the shipyard in Bath, Maine, on Nov. 7, 1998. "Granny" died 37 days after the USS Oscar Austin was launched.

Mr. Payne and Mrs. Garrett finally met two years later in Norfolk after the former Marine's daughter wrote to a Web site honoring Vietnam veterans, www.thevirtualwall.org, to express gratitude for Pfc. Austin's heroism.

"She said she wouldn't even be there if he hadn't saved me," Mr. Payne recalls. "The prospective master chief of the USS Oscar Austin saw it and called her. I guess he was under the impression I was dead."

That led to his being invited to the commissioning ceremony for the ship at Norfolk on Aug. 19, 2000.

Beforehand, Mr. Payne posted his own message to Oscar Austin on the Virtual Wall site.

"I am so proud they finally got around to honoring you my friend and I am so saddened even 30-plus years later that it is in death that you will be honored," he wrote. "You gave your life for me my dear friend. It is a debt I can never repay in this life."

Mr. Payne says he was apprehensive about meeting the Austin family in Norfolk.

"It was just real hard knowing they were going to be there. I could picture it that he was the one who lived, and I died. He was a great person and had so many plans."

A belated meeting

Mr. Payne anticipated correctly that Mrs. Garrett had wondered whether he was alive — and whether his life was exemplary     "If he had not lived, it would all have been in vain," Mrs. Garrett says. "And if he had lived and turned out to be a drug addict or in prison, I probably would have felt even worse than knowing he didn't live.

"When I met up with him that is what I told him. And I said he might not have known how to find me, but you would have thought he would at least have found my mother."

The meeting could have been scripted in Hollywood: Mr. Payne was studying a painting of Pfc. Austin on exhibit at the Navy pier. Thinking he was alone, he said aloud to himself, "That doesn't look like Oscar."

"You're right, it doesn't," replied Mrs. Garrett, who had walked up behind him.

Then they embraced, the fallen Marine's sister and the friend he had saved more than 30 years earlier.

Mrs. Garrett, having learned from others what Mr. Payne's life was like, pronounces herself well satisfied. She says she is writing him a letter so he will rest easier.

"It gave me a good feeling to know that my brother lives on through him, and that my brother helped him to establish values in his own life," she says.

It was not always so, Mr. Payne admits, particularly after he got back from Vietnam. "My life was kind of shaky, a shambles, I expect, but I found out I couldn't drown it and drink it away," he says.

'What would Oscar do?'

With the help of a policeman friend, Mr. Payne turned things around, graduated from college and joined the Navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant. He completed 22 years of active and reserve duty, then became a vocational teacher in the California prison system.

"Is my life good?" he asks. "I think it is, yes. I was always saying to myself, 'What would Oscar do?' To me he seemed like a giant."

Mr. Payne recalls that the two frequently violated orders by visiting an orphanage at Dai Loc in Quang Nam province, giving C-rations and peanut butter to the Vietnamese children and daydreaming about taking all 41 to the United States.

"Oscar and I were good Marines. We weren't the best, but we were good," a pensive Mr. Payne says.

He tells how his friend lived on through his own pre-release counseling of young criminals at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe, Calif.

"It often was misguided allegiance that put them there, and a high percentage of them are minorities and gangbangers who always talked about loyalty, so I turned that to Oscar," Mr. Payne says, struggling for words at this point.

"I told them he would have been loyal to me if I did something wrong, but I know he would also have kicked my butt. And I told them that Oscar, in his loyalty, he gave me life and he gave my family life."

The sense of responsibility often weighed on Mr. Payne.

"You can let the burden drive you into the ground or you figure there is a purpose that the person gave his life for you," he says. "So I made a second life. I tried to do that."

Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[lurchenstein]

Another memorable tribute to those that gave all and giving thanks for those still among us.

[lurchenstein]

Photo for previous post.

[thedrifter]

sent to me by gylancaster


Decoration Day
Memories of Sharon Barbato




Whenever I see lilacs or peonies, I think of Decoration Day. When I was a young child growing up in the 1950s, it was called "Decoration Day" by everyone in our Illinois farming community and always observed on May 31.

Decoration Day was an important day to our families. On this day we decorated the graves of our departed family members with flowers, and placed flowers on the graves of the soldiers of our country's last five wars. The Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II and Korea. We took very seriously of seeing that every grave marked with a flag was decorated.

Every year on that date my Mom, brother, sister and I went to my grandparents. We used grandma’s homegrown flowers – never did we even think of stopping at commercial greenhouses to buy flowers for our cemetery visits. Plastic and silk flowers weren’t known then either – and wouldn’t have been considered proper even if they had been available.

Weeks before Decoration Day we carefully watched grandma’s growing flowers and worried if they would be ready. If the weather were too warm, the flowers would be in full bloom far too soon. If the days of late May were too cold, the flowers would not be ready for cutting.

I recall a few years when May was hot and the flowers were heading for an early bloom. We cut buckets of them days ahead to store in my grandma’s dark, cold, root cellar. Other years, when spring was too cold, we cut the budding flowers and put them in warm water in grandma’s summer kitchen to force blooms.

There were not a great variety of plants around the houses in those days. Nor was there the time or money to spend cultivating those plants that wouldn’t grow and thrive easily. Some of the lovely, old-fashioned plants we counted on were irises, tiger lilies, small bush roses and "snowballs". But the favorite old standbys were lilacs and peonies.

On the evening before Decoration Day the whole family got busy cutting blooms. We used a colorful mixture for each arrangement – just large enough to fit nicely into the quart jars containers. Then we tied each bunch together with a bit of string and put them in buckets and foot tubs of cold water.

The next morning we arrived early at our grandparent’s house. Now the big job was to get all those buckets, tubs and jars – and the whole family – into grandpa’s old Ford car.

The baskets of old cracked and chipped canning jars were fastened on the running boards. The flowers were squeezed into the trunk of the car with the lid left open to keep them from being smashed. An old sheet was loosely anchored over the flowers to keep them from being damaged by the wind. Our whole family piled inside the car and we grandkids steadied gallon jugs of cold iced tea between our feet. Our grandma held the picnic basket on her lap.

Off we went making stops at several cemeteries before ending up at the Oakland Cemetery where most family members were buried. It was considered necessary to arrive early to find a shady parking place near the only water pump in the cemetery. But an early arrival also showed good planning and pride to our neighbors and other family members. (It was like being the first in your neighborhood to get your laundry flapping on the clothesline on Monday morning.)

We kids ran to the water pump for buckets of water, quickly filled all the jars and placed a bunch of flowers in each one. We all helped to carry the arrangements around the cemetery, anchoring the jars in the soil on the proper graves.

We met lots of relatives and neighbors and our Mom and grandparents spent much time chatting and catching up on the family news as they trimmed grass or pulled weeds and generally tidied grave-sites. As we moved around the cemetery we saw graves unkempt and barren of flowers. We overhead the adults say the families of those deceased relatives were uncaring or disrespectful of their dead. Decoration Day was taken very serious in those days.

It had been a long time since our early breakfast and we kids were starved. We gathered at the car where we sat on the grass and ate sandwiches of cheese, bologna and peanut butter, hard-boiled eggs, cookies and drank our cold tea.

In the early afternoon a band could be heard playing in the distance. We gathered by the cemetery roadside and excitedly watched for the Decoration Day Parade to make its slow way the one-half mile from Main Street to the cemetery. The band played soulful marches and straggled a bit. The Veterans in their uniforms were worn-looking and their faces very sad, I thought, but they proudly marched carrying the American flag.

As Old Glory passed by everyone from the youngest child to the oldest adult stood quietly, placing their right hand over their heart showing honor and respect to our veterans, and those servicemen and women who were killed in the wars.

When the front of the procession reached the entrance to the cemetery, they all stopped. Someone with a booming voice said a prayer. After some maneuvering, we could hear a voice shout something about "those who died at sea." Rifles were fired into the air and a bugler played Taps. Chills ran up my spine, as children and adults all fought back tears.

The parade and Decoration Day service was over with and the adults were done chatting and visiting. The flowers were all placed on the proper graves. The picnic basket was empty. We kids were tired and bored. Disapproving adults had quickly discouraged our half-hearted attempts at hide-and-seek and tag among the grave markers. We climbed into the car and headed home to Grandma’s where we quickly kicked off our shoes, got into our old clothes and ran through the cooling grass of a late spring afternoon. There at Grandma’s we were free to be ourselves again. The perfect end to our busy Decoration Day.

Patriotism was not shown just once a year, that was a way of life for us. We were taught to respect and honor those that died. We understood the price of freedom. When I was older, a teenager, I took time to read the names and dates on the headstones. But when I was young, my mind's eye pictured the men buried beneath the grassy mounds as old - like the veterans in the parade. It never occurred to me that soldiers died young.

A few years ago, on a visit home, I stopped by the old cemetery. The little cemetery was green and peaceful, just as I remembered it from 50 years before - the same cornfields and pastures just a few yards away. The trees were taller, though, but there were no longer flags on any graves.

There is no Decoration Day procession to the Oakland cemetery now. I wonder if anyone puts peonies on the graves of the soldiers of those old wars, as well as on those of the veterans of the newer wars - Vietnam, Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom.

I live in Connecticut now. But this year, like many years past I will be making a trip home - in my imagination - back in time and memory to that cemetery, where I will again honor the dead - the wars' and my family's - on Decoration Day.

Over the years the true meaning of Memorial Day has faded more and more from the public consciousness. From a solemn day of mourning, of remembrance, and of honor to our departed loved ones, it has degenerated into a weekend of Bar B Q's and beaches where only token nods toward our honored dead is given, if at all.

Too many people don't even know what the day stands for. But let's not blame them. The blame belongs to Congress who made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363), to ensure a three-day weekend for Federal holidays.

The blame belongs to those of us who know what the true meaning is but fail to observe the day, or at best give a weak token nod toward it (because we don't want to appear "odd" or "different" or a "party-pooper"?)

The blame belongs to those of us who know the true meaning but do not politely teach others it, pass it down to our children, or make it a family tradition. And the blame belongs to those of us who know and honor the day, but do not support any societal efforts to return "

I consider this day to be a national day of mourning. As a Vietnam Veteran this is how I observe this day, honoring and remembering those that made the supreme sacrifice for America‘s freedom.

The Moment of Remembrance started in 2001 is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What I feel is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Let’s put "Memorial" back into Memorial Day!





To a veteran ...every day is Memorial Day.
We will not forget!


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Thunder' riders' focus spans Vietnam, Iraq
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030525-100930-6004r.htm

By Sharon Behn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The ground shook from a deep-throated rumble yesterday as thousands of motorbikes rolled into Washington for the first Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom since the war in Iraq.

"What you hear is the heartbeat of these people," said 53-year-old Elizabeth Friend, whose stepson has just returned from Iraq. "Without these guys, we'd have nothing."

Michael Friend, 23, a U.S. Marine as was his father, who fought in Vietnam, returned from Kuwait and Iraq on May 16.

On the back of his pickup flew a stained and tattered flag that flew amid the dust of al-Kut, outside Baghdad.

"This is of great importance," he said, as thousands of bikers from around the country gathered outside the Pentagon at dawn before the annual pilgrimage to the Reflecting Pool and the Korean and Vietnam war memorials. "I still have a lot of friends over there, and they are in potential danger."

Some of the thousands of riders looked much older than they did when in Vietnam. Their ponytails are now white, their stomachs are bigger and their beards are gray.

But their feelings about the Vietnam War seem unchanged.

"We want a full accounting for all the prisoners of war and those missing in action," said Art Foss, who spent 18 months in Vietnam.

He said about 1,850 soldiers remain unaccounted for there.

The ride, in its 16th year, is named after the massive but unsuccessful U.S. bombing operation against North Vietnam in the late 1960s known as Rolling Thunder.

Reports of heavy casualties after the bombing caused support to dwindle in the U.S.

Since then, Rolling Thunder chapters around the country have tried to account for the dead, the missing and prisoners of war.

Among those who arrived in Washington yesterday was 80-year-old Pauline Yeakley, whose son, Robin, was shot down in a helicopter June 11, 1972.

"He has never been accounted for," said Miss Yeakley, known as a Gold Star mother and dressed all in white amid the backdrop of dark, rain-streaked skies.

"All I [had] was a piece of paper ... but in April they told me they think they have found where his helicopter went down. They've come up with a few things like a watch and boot soles," she continued before a veteran handed her a red rose.

"It makes it easier to know that people do care," Miss Yeakley said before climbing onto the back of a big, red Honda motorcycle. "I needed this."

Among the riders was a small group of Navajo Indians making a memorial run for Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa — killed in Iraq     A dream-catcher, designed and painted in her honor, was taped onto the windshield of Leon Curley's black Harley Davidson.

"We're taking the dream catcher to Arlington cemetery," said Mr. Curley, who claimed his great-grandfather was the last scout to work for Kit Carson and is buried in the national cemetery. He also said his Navajo uncle, Emerson Morton, has his name inscribed with thousands of others on the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial.

A decal on the back of a rider's helmet seemed to express the feelings of many veterans:
"The price of freedom is written on the wall."

Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

washingtonpost.com
The Sacrifices for Freedom
Iraq War's Toll Weighs Heavily At Memorial Day Ceremonies

By Neely Tucker and S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 27, 2003; Page A01


The marble steps were wet with rain, the showers falling in the early hours on the living and the dead, and at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday morning, the bugle player sounded out a dirge that united those who were no more with those who came to remember.

The dirge was taps, the 24-note melody that has accompanied military funerals since the Civil War, and the man placing the red and white wreath at the marble tomb was President Bush. The nation's most prominent service on the first Memorial Day since the Iraq war was overflowing with more than 5,000 spectators despite skies as somber as the ceremony. The trees dripped water, the grass and muddy burial ground sodden with it, and the tiny flags planted at each marble marker seemed especially forlorn.

The shadow of a war just ended gave particular poignancy to a day when so much attention often is paid to wars of the more distant past.

"On Memorial Day, Americans place flags on military graves, walk past a wall of black granite in Washington, D.C., and many families think of a face and voice they miss so much," Bush told a standing-room-only crowd at the tomb's amphitheater, alluding to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall, where later in the day thousands would gather for another observance. "From the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan, to the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, to the trials of world war, to the struggles that made us a nation, today we recall that liberty is always the achievement of courage."

As memorials unfolded across town and across the country, some including a moment of silence for the men and women still on duty in Iraq, Bush spoke with a backdrop of three huge U.S. flags. He was joined on stage by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others.

The crowd seated in front of them came from all over the nation, from Jerry Wheatley, an electrician from Kansas, to Gloria Kotila and Nancy Blume, who made the trek from tiny Dassel, Minn., population 1,500. A moment of silence also was observed in honor of soldiers in Iraq. The latest war was on the mind of many gathered at the cemetery and on the Mall, some of whom said they felt powerless watching the televised images of war.

"There's not a whole lot we can do, but we can be here," said Karen Mathias, a Silver Spring Web designer who was at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. "It's not just a day to sit around or go to sales. It makes an impact to be down here."

Sitting astride his Harley-Davidson, blue-jean-and-leather-clad Mike Erb, a veteran of the Vietnam War, agreed.

"It's been such an emotional weekend," said Erb, who with wife Fran rode from Reading, Pa., into town for the Rolling Thunder procession. The couple attended yesterday's memorial at Arlington Cemetery, Erb wearing a star-spangled bandanna as a head wrap. "This isn't just about Iraq, or Vietnam, but everybody lost in all the wars. . . . It's a very tearful time."

Lhundup Dorjee, 37, a teacher of Tibetan culture and language, took his two children to the Wall to learn a different kind of lesson: what it means, and what it costs, to be an American.

"I'm acutely aware of the sacrifices America has made. We are from parts of the world where there is no freedom," said Dorjee, who came here five years ago from India and lives in Fairfax. "I want our children to remember this."

In an address meant to set the national tone for the holiday of remembrance, Bush repeatedly sought to portray the down-home aspect of military life and sacrifice. He mentioned the last letter from Staff Sgt. Lincoln Hollinsaid of Malden, Ill., who wrote his parents thanking them for their letters before lamenting, "I wish my truck and boat knew how to write."

In that vein, Bush paid tribute to servicemen and women who had come from "farms and small towns and city streets," who were "last seen on duty. . . . The images they carried with them at the end were the people they loved and the familiar sights of home."

Bush also compared the recent funerals, in the same section of the cemetery, for Marine 2nd Lt. Frederick Pokorney Jr., who died in the war in Iraq, and Army 1st Lt. Rob Jenkins, whose bomber was shot down over North Africa in World War II. The wreckage of the plane was recently recovered, and Jenkins and the remains of his five-member crew were buried last month.

"This nation does not forget," Bush said, drawing an emotional round of applause.

A few hours later at the Wall, thousands placed wreaths, flowers and messages to loved ones listed there. Darryl Nash, making a familiar pilgrimage, came to touch the name of his older brother, John. He was killed in 1968, less than a year after he arrived in Vietnam.

"I just feel closer to him," said Nash, 42, of the District. "I was just a kid when he left. He would have been 53 now."

At the end of the ceremony, the six newest names added to the wall were read aloud. Donald S. Carson, Frank L. Huddleston, Kevin J. Joyce, William J. Scannell, J. Mark Rogers, Dwaine U. McGriff, the toll read.

Their addition brought the number listed to 58,235.

A few hundreds yards away, over a small, tree-covered rise, a handful of World War II veterans checked the progress on a monument paying tribute to their service. The National World War II Memorial is expected to be complete by next Memorial Day.

D.C. resident Leo Anderson, who was stationed with the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II and is now retired, said he was sad that more of his comrades won't be there to see it. Of the 16 million people who served in World War II, fewer than 4 million are expected to be alive at the memorial's unveiling.

"You thank God you're around to carry on the tradition," said Anderson, 84, a shaky hand gripping his cane.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Sempers,

Roger