In our parks there are whole other armies of veterans mostly young and mostly old but always ageless who are not alone. They read aloud to themselves and their children from the plaques and statues monuments and markers those one-line truths of our common experience as if there could be a real significance in words like Love and Hate tatooed on the clenched, granite fists of America. Sometimes, when I am angry it seems as if I could start my own country with the same twenty Spill and Spell words we shake out at the feet of our heroes like some crone spreading her hands over the runes prior to a mystic reading. Army Air Force, Navy, Marines and freedom. Then, just as quickly, the anger passes and reverence takes its place.
Death is inarticulately final refusing forever to negotiate.
That, and the awesome responsibility we place eternally on our fallen teenage sons, seems unbearably heavy against the lengthening prancing shadows of Sunday's frisbeers. Apparently, there is no period which can be placed after sacrifice. All life is struggle. As it is with man so it is with mankind. If we permit Memorial Day to come to us every day, we ignore the concept of sacrifice and dilute its purpose.