I’ve stood in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington. And I’ve read In Flanders Field and seen Saving Private Ryan. I’ve felt tears when watching soldier homecoming videos.
Let me be the first to say, I have no idea what Memorial Day truly means to many, many people in this country.
Now that I have children of my own, a husband, a family, all of whom count on me in ways large and small, and whom I count on in the same ways, maybe I understand a little more. Maybe I can imagine what it might be like to lose one of them. But in this moment, it’s only an abstract impression. It is one of those things that I sometimes feel with fearful clarity in odd moments. What if. What if, my heart beats on a random commute into work, or just before I fall asleep. But then I move on to other thoughts and other things, and I stop thinking about it. Because I can.
I realize that Memorial Day is about what happens if that abstract what if changes into a painfully crystalized reality. And I realize again, that still, even with my family and my children, I have no idea what it would mean to live with that possibility in such a way that it became subconsciously habitual, or god forbid, real.
Yesterday, at a work bbq celebrating the long weekend, it was sort of miserable outside. Dark, cold, rainy. We were in a hangar, except for the poor grill master, but it was still cold and one of my coworkers offered his fighter jacket, leaving him in shortsleeves. If there’s one thing about the military I’ve learned, it’s that chivalry is not dead.
“That jacket’s been places,” he said as he handed it over. I asked where. The list was astounding. Jordan and Germany and Africa and Crete. There were a dozen others. And sewn inside of it is a silk blood chit, written in a dozen languages, identifying the wearer as friendly and asking for assistance. An interesting bbq conversation, until you consider why a fighter jacket needs a blood chit to begin with.
Before my current job, I didn’t have a lot of experience with the military. Now I have more, in, granted, an informal way. My coworkers have told casual stories about months aboard a submarine, about POW training, about air raids and about the bonds that they made during service. Sometimes when someone has been brought into the corporate fold, the explanation is just, “They flew together.” Initially, I thought it was straight up nepotism. But after hearing the stories I understand that it probably is nepotism, but that more, it’s brotherhood. Hearing the stories, I get it. And respect that.
I’ve met more military and ex-military in the last few years than I have the lifetime before that. I’ve heard stories I’ve never heard. And as with anything in life, the more you learn, the more you know. I’m grateful for that.
This Memorial Day, I admit I still don’t truly understand what the holiday really means to those who have lost someone in service to this country. I can’t know. I haven’t lived it. I don’t understand what it means to live with that possibility. And I can’t truly understand what it means to move post to post every few years, and wait at home and go about all the functions of daily life while counting down days until a deployment ends. I definitely can’t understand what it means to go into work every day knowing that work means, possibly, the very biggest sacrifice of all.
But I know I appreciate it.
