Thoughts about War and Warriors on Memorial Day

While others find it easy to celebrate noble warriors on Memorial Day, I have always found it hard to do so because I couldn't separate the warrior from the war. Innocent people get killed, land gets damaged and, think about it, is the cause really worth fighting for? I am a pacifist.

But why am I this way? Why can't I bring myself to click on the thumbs-up button when my friends post photos of family members who have served? Perhaps there is a clue in that last sentence: family. Perhaps I don't express appropriate Memorial Day emotion because of conditioning experience. 

I grew up around a father who was bitter about the military. He joined the Merchant Marine when he was 19, in 1941, because it was the right thing to do. But while some signed up for the Navy and Army, he wore glasses, was "legally blind," so they wouldn't take him. He turned to the natural alternative. In his hometown of Mathews, Virginia, the Merchant Marine suited the seafaring tradition and many Mathews Men chose maritime careers in times of peace. Dad made multiple trips to Europe and one destined for Japan in convoys of hastily constructed Liberty Ships loaded down with munitions, attacked by German U-Boats. Amazingly enough, he survived.

But in the end he felt angry. His buddies came home from service to the GI bill. He would not be able to afford college and of course that affected his career prospects and life trajectory. Even after Reagan granted veteran status to those who served as merchant seaman he wouldn't sign up. It was too late then, he thought. All through his career as a civil servant, an electrician on the Fort Eustis army base, he would make his bitterness know with little asides about military men on the base who acted in entitled ways.

When my son was a Boy Scout and we went to Memorial Day services, I looked at veterans and saw men who thought they were better than my father. For years I couldn't feel a warm place in my heart for veterans or Memorial Day, until the last decade or so. 

It all started to change during a speech-language pathology practicum when I worked at the VA Polytrauma Center at Hunter Holmes Hospital in Richmond. I saw young boys whose lives were forever changed by an IED . . . or an attempt to commit suicide to get out of the service. Warrior. War. Two different things.

And then, while working on family genealogy, I came across a photo of my grandfather when he was 22, the same age as my son at that time. Sent from Maine, it simply said, "Dear Aunt, I expect to go to France in a few days. Love to all, Cpl. Frank Lewis." He enlisted 101 years ago, in May 1917, and was discharged in March 1919. He came home to a career with the US Lighthouse Service, serving out the rest of his life in lonely stints on Chesapeake Bay lighthouses. He died when I was 4-years old, in 1959. Warrior. War. Two different things.

Recently I watched with utter sadness and dismay the The Vietnam War film by Ken Burns. As if I hadn't know, it called out the fact that wars are the product of politics and leadership. And the warriors . . . are swept along. The Looming Tower brought it closer. Today we have a president who could recklessly spark yet another war.

Wars. Warriors. So many are sacrificed in body and spirit. Our lands and monuments are scared and destroyed. Why? Have we, has anyone, ever won? What did they win for the warriors? Yes, yes, some wars are about animals like Hitler, but many are not.

Memorial Day isn't about celebrating noble warriors. It is about opening our hearts to those who have seen terrible things, who have done the unspeakable. It is about embracing a world tired of war and focusing our next moves along a peaceful path with arms linked across nations. May we feel our common humanity and be weapons of war no more.