In the Space Between the Heavens

There are things we never forget. Some are generational: where you were when you heard President John F. Kennedy had been shot; when we first walked on the moon or what you were doing when the World Trade Center was attacked?

Other experiences, and to each his own, are more personal: where I was the first time I saw the woman I was to marry or what I was doing when our first-born told us he'd gotten hired for his first full-time job or our daughter told us she'd been accepted into college.

Life is millions of interconnected moments, each one linking and leading to the next from the previous, and each of our lives is what we do within those moments, both together and alone.

This is the Memorial Day weekend and the above was my feeble attempt to try to make sense of the sacrifice of those who died in uniform in the defense of their country, because it's my country, too. 

Until it got rolled into the great Monday Holiday Law to make More Three-Day Weekends (or whatever its official name is), we wouldn't celebrate Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as our parents called it, until this coming Friday. Good thing we got it moved, eh?

Those hot dogs and burgers aren't going to grill themselves. And those BOGO sales at the strip malls will not last forever and what about the Indy 500? Yeah, everyone's a winner when we make things into three-day holiday weekends. Sure, we lose sight eventually of what the holiday is about (some of us get Memorial Day and Veterans Day mixed up), but that's got as much to do with the rate and pace of change in our lives and society as well as our inability to maintain our focus long enough to complete a thought.

Reinterred Norwich soldiers (nine of fifteen who died) from Andersonville Prison Camp at the Yantic Cemetery, Norwich, Connecticut

Previous generations used to observe, not celebrate, Memorial Day, by visiting the graves of relatives and friends who'd died in uniform and placing flowers and little American flags. I saw someone the other day at the Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, on Lafayette Street behind Backus Hospital, driving his Audi on the walking path between the grave markers while talking on his cell phone. Classy, real classy. And the sports radio on? Nice touch.

Between now and eight o'clock tomorrow night (DST), when you tune into the PBS Memorial Day Concert, try to check the event's website the PBS folks have created. Every time I go there, I learn at least one new 'something' and I visit there a lot.

Here in Norwich, and near where you live as well, there will be observances-ours is Monday and starts with a parade at noon that starts near The Cathedral of Saint Patrick St. Patrick's and concludes at Chelsea Parade with a brief ceremony of remembrance.

There's speeching by a lot of folks who never served a day in uniform (sorry. My eight years in the Air Force makes me cranky sometimes at people who think because they are entitled to their opinion, I, too, should be entitled to it also) with small children scampering between the rows of metal folding chairs that the organizers so meticulously arranged. 

Then those chairs get rearranged as friends (every year, a few less than the time before) sit together and share their own memories as young men trapped in old men's bodies recall their wild youth and a school chum who didn't return from one of our far-off wars, and then there is a wreath laying at the (quite lovely) memorial on the north end. And before we know it, we're living and reliving Gunners Dream.
-bill kenny

In the Space Between the Heavens

Monday we observe Memorial Day, the traditional beginning of the summer season and usually a reason for a spectacular barbecue. At the risk of harshing your pre-holiday buzz, I'd offer Memorial Day is why we can say and do many of the things we say and do in this country without fear or consequence.

Some of us have parents who can remember when Memorial Day was called Decoration Day and even farther back than that, it was an attempt to honor the war dead of the War Between the States, evolving into a remembrance of all of those men and women in uniform who sacrificed their lives to preserve our liberties.

Across the country on Monday and throughout Norwich there will be memorials and remembrances. We live close to Chelsea Parade and I regularly walk among the various markers at Memorial Park to Norwich's war dead from the conflicts that have shaped and shaken our nation. Soon, thanks in no small part to the Norwich Area Veterans Council, a reminder and remembrance of Jacob Martir and Keith Heidtman, our two too-soon gone Norwich residents who died in the Global War on Terror, will join the others.

But it's not their sacrifice I want you to contemplate as you double-check the count on the hot dogs and buns for the weekend cook-out but, rather, the price paid by so many in uniform for opportunities and privileges to which too many of us seem oblivious. Freedom has a price and each generation pays its share. Memorial Day is a thank you to those who foot that bill and most especially those who paid the ultimate price.
 
It's ceased to be about picnics, previews of summer or a shortened work week and has again become a day to honor those whom we have lost. Those who gave their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq are first and foremost in our thoughts and hearts but we cannot forget those who are the original greatest generation of World War II, the heroes of the Korean War, the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who served so valiantly in the Vietnam and the First Gulf Wars. We remember those who died in Somalia, Grenada, Beirut and many other locations across the globe where we have put our sons and daughters in harm’s way.

But when we speak of honoring our heroes, we should ask ourselves what should we do in their memories? What is our responsibility to them? They gave their entire lives—we owe them more than a day. We live in a world of twelve-second sound bites on television where earth-shaping and history making events are chased and replaced by other breaking stories and memories fade.
We get confused but we shouldn't. Celebrities make headlines-heroes make a difference.

And the men and women we honor and remember are heroes. In the words of John F. Kennedy, himself a veteran of World War II, "A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers." On Memorial Day we honor and remember not only the men but also the women who died believing freedom is the most precious gift we have. Our heroes forfeited their lives to prove that and their sacrifice requires us to live as engaged and energized citizens of the world who deserved their sacrifice, because we do.
-bill kenny