I am married to a Canadian and even though he is now an American citizen, he can never really understand my patriotism on Memorial Day. Sorry to my Canadian in-laws but for we Americans, Memorial Day is a very important day, one that extends beyond BBQs and trips to the cottage for a long weekend. I proudly fly my flag on Memorial Day. I don’t care who is fighting, I don’t care where. It’s not political for me. I don’t like war, then again, no one does, really, but I support the troops no matter where they are deployed. Maybe it’s because American freedom is rooted in the blood of our land. Our founders had to wage war just to come here and form the nation we've become today. I have family members from both sides who served their country proudly both in times of war and peace. Most people my age do, I am not alone.
When I recently asked my husband where our flag was (we just moved into a new home) and he said he didn’t know, he became annoyed when I said I would run to the store to buy a new one to fly on Memorial Day.
“Why buy a new one, can’t we just wait until we find the old one?” was his response.
There is no way, I answered, that we will go this weekend without flying a flag on our new house. It’s MEMORIAL DAY. Perhaps a little more patience is needed on my part to remind my Canadian-born hubby about the blood upon which our country was founded, for the freedom we Americans now take for granted. For me, it’s also personal. I had a cousin who came home from Vietnam a different man.
His name was Terrence Fritz and he was my first cousin, an enlisted Naval soldier. I didn’t know him very well, because although he was my father’s nephew, my father was the youngest of seven siblings, so Cousin Terry was much older than me.
Like his father before him, Terry served in the Navy. His service was in Vietnam during the late 1960s and early 1970s. His dad, my Uncle Bob, served on the U.S.S. Hornet, yes the same ship bombed in WWII and he lived to tell about it.
Today, to support causes, a war, a disease, a person, we wear rubber bands in varying colors. Back then, we wore dog tags in support of those who went Missing in Action (MIA) during the Vietnam conflict.
Though I was very small child, many things stand out for me from the days of Vietnam, mainly the newspapers, which used to publish the long lists of soldiers injured, MIA or worst of all, fatally wounded. These lists were posted on the front page. My mother would read the lists and comment if a last name sounded familiar.
“Brown, Oh I hope that’s not Carole's brother, he’s also from Dearborn….Beckett, oh I hope that’s not our neighbor’s son.”
As a little girl, even after I switched from Parochial to public school, I remember praying for our soldiers in the classroom. We did so openly, without apology to anyone and surprisingly, unlike today, no parents called the school to complain or brought lawyers to school board meetings.
My earliest recollection of how much war can change a person was during a Christmas visit cousin Terry made to see my Grandmother, who by then lived with my Aunt Virge. We were all there, sitting around the Christmas tree, smiling and enjoying a family visit. Cousin Terry was quiet but he smiled a lot. Even as a child of 6, I could tell Terry’s smile was different. It was a fixed smile and he said very little, staring straight ahead, appearing oblivious to what was being said.
My father asked Terry about combat. Daddy was an Army man who stayed stateside and finished his service just as things in Vietnam heated up. He is still fiercely patriotic, something he instilled in my brother and me. Terry said a few things to Daddy about losing his best friend in his arms in combat. I sat and listened intently. After a few more words, Terry went back to staring straight ahead. He then leaned over to me, placed his hand on my thigh and asked me a question. I don’t recall what he asked but I do recall Daddy’s prompt reaction. Swiftly I was whisked into Aunt Virge’s kitchen where I was told Terry came back from the war “different” and that I shouldn’t let him touch me. Daddy said Terry was suffering from all he had seen in the war and that he was now taking “medication” that was not good for him. Translation: Terry was strung out on heroin.
While Terry finally came home from Vietnam for good in 1973, he was never the same. Daddy used to express concern about his nephew. A few years later, we all thought he was finally getting his life back on track. He popped in unannounced one Sunday in November, 1978, just in time for family dinner.
Mom made a pot roast and Terry was quite jovial. He asked me if I had a boyfriend. He teased my dad about needing a shotgun when I started to date. He was clean, he told my parents.... and he said he had a nice girlfriend he was going to introduce to us soon. As he looked around the table at my brother and me seated in Mom’s kitchen, I remember very clearly when Terry stood up to leave. He took a look around where we were all sitting, took a deep sigh and said:
"Yep. This is what I'M gonna have, Uncle Danny. I'm gonna get me a nice family and house like this."
He hugged us all and left us, leaving us with the belief that, unlike so many other sad families, we had were blessed with a happy ending to a terrible war.
One week later, mom picked me up from high school. I was all abuzz about my weekend filled with activities. Tonight's Pompon routine was finished for the game, my choir concert was Saturday night. Oh and I might hit the mall with besties on Sunday. My weekend was all set. With a grim look on her face, Mom told me I would instead be attending visitation for my Cousin Terry, who sadly, had taken his life in a hotel room.
Apparently, despite appearances, the grim realities of the war never really left Terry and it all had become too much for him to bear. Holding his best friend as his life slipped away. Dodging landmines and gunfire, the sounds of painful cries, the smell of death all around him, it all never really left him. He seemed fine when last I saw him. We all wear masks that very few ever really see. We all bleed red and we all carry scars. Especially those who served our country, both living and dead.
Which leads me back to today. It's Memorial Day, once again. First proclaimed on May 5, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the republic, Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, when flowers were placed at the graves of both Union AND confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. But make no mistake, it is not a day of division but of reconciliation. Living in the south, I see a new perspective to these days of honor. Originally called Decoration Day, it was once a day when ladies in the south used to decorate the graves of our war dead before the civil war even ended. The need to honor our war dead morphed into the day of remembrance of those killed in our nation’s service it is today. We remember all the veterans of all the wars and we may not mourn so much as we praise them for their ultimate sacrifices.
As you're out and about, attending BBQs or headed to the nursery to buy your landscaping flowers, look around you because there are still so many of these men and women among us. You might never know what they've lived through. They have families. They are our neighbors. They share fellowship with us. They laugh at our jokes. They attend ceremonies at Legion and VFW halls across the country. They visit the memorials. I’ve attended a few veterans’ funerals. Sadly, the men representing WWII and Korea are dying off quickly but there will always be newer, younger vets to step up and fill their places, because sadly, wars won’t stop.
When you look into the faces of a vet, pay close attention. You might notice that same distant look I remember seeing in my cousin Terry’s face…the hollow stares that remind us of the horrors of war we easily sweep under the carpet. It’s easy to hold our hands over our hearts while singing the national anthem but it’s not quite as easy to imagine what our soldiers have been through. It’s downright ugly and we’ve become a society that doesn’t want our children to know of such unspeakable horrors. Yet our children SHOULD know what the generations before them did to make sure they never live life under tyranny. Let us NEVER forget what this day is really about. We owe a debt of gratitude to the families of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. We cannot thank our war dead in person, yet even if someone died as far back as WWI or WWII, they still have offspring among us.
We have Veteran’s day to thank our living vets. But this weekend is about memorializing those who fought to the death for each and every one of us. Thanks to them, I can say what I want. I can disagree with our government openly if I feel the need to do so and not be put in prison. I can even burn our American flag if I so choose, even though I’d rather someone rip off my arm before I’d do such a heinous action. Why? Because I am a free woman living in a democracy that, while easily threatened, openly provoked and often hated by those NOT born here, is still the greatest country in the world, thanks to these men and women.
Please remember to thank a family member of a deceased veteran this weekend. If you live near one, stop by a veteran cemetery and lay some flowers. You don’t know the occupants of these headstone, but you know our country. And so did these men and women. They paid the price for YOUR life.
And to my cousin Terry: Although I never really knew you but as an adult, I admire and respect you and most of all, I thank you. Hopefully you are at rest now, with your navy buddies, enjoying a BBQ of your own with your fallen comrades. Do so knowing your little cousin will never forget your sacrifice. God Bless America.
