what Memorial Day means to me

when i was a kid, yeah, all i knew about Memorial Day was my mother made me where red, white, and blue, and we cooked out.

then i turned 10 and my best friend's brother came home from Vietnam in a box that had a flag draped over it and everything changed for me.

i went to so many military funerals during my junior high through college years, and after.  Memorial Day was always a pensive day for me; friends i'd lost.  beloved brothers of friends who would never come home and the permanent sadness that haunted their eyes.  when anyone received a letter from a loved one, it was torn open and searched for the signature, for any other handwriting that might let the family know something bad had happened, because, not often, but every once in a while, a letter was sent by his men and it reached home before the official visit.  MIA.  POW.  KIA.  initials that made everyone shudder.  each bore it's own horror.

my Dragon told me stories.  i've related some here in past blog postings.  Memorial Day weekend was his time of flashbacks.  i would sit with him while he wouldn't/couldn't/didn't talk to me.  i don't know what he was "seeing" but it was harrowing for him.

my father-in-law served aboard subs.  he used to say that when he died he knew he'd see his mates again.  i wonder if my Dragon has?  what i wouldn't give to be a fly on that wall.

i worked yesterday all day.  a man came in who worked for the VA.  he and his wife had me teary inside of 5 minutes.  he said he will try and get me a whole bouquet of Buddy Poppies.  i want them so bad.  i have tried to collect them over these 3 years and i cannot find them anywhere.  the ones i do have people have sent me.  i am so looking forward to a whole bouquet.  i hope he doesn't forget me.

i miss my Dragon.  it's been horrible hard of late.  i have no reason for it.  i just feel vulnerable.  i think i miss him more on Memorial Day than say, on his birthday, because i know what he did as a Marine.  i know what he sacrificed.  in my heart, he is a hero.  i wish i could tell you more, but i promised him.

i feel on the edge of control of my life and yet tiny things keep cropping up, like my broken knee, my cracked foot, all things i need to take care of.  long hours with difficult people.  worries of doing my job correctly.  worries over the numbers of my store.  my daughter wants to leave her job.  she has an interview with my district manager on Tuesday.  i hope they give her a job.  the job.  the one she wants.

i have today off.  i am embroidering.  i'm thinking of my Dragon.  i can see his flag, his medals, and his urn.  people are shopping and cooking out.  but some are going to the cemeteries and planting flags.  some are eating and smiling and all the while, they are remembering.  i'll be sitting with my two dogs.  they are glad i have a day off.  i am glad, too.  i will have time to gather myself for work tomorrow.  i'll have to be ready.  i'll be out in public.

i love you, my lovely Dragon.  you are the best.

Dragon in War and Peace ~ Memorial Day 2010

"Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books." ~ Walk Whitman

my Dragon knew war. he is a United States Marine, Force Recon. he is a Marine Scout Sniper and did what his country asked of him. he is not a tall man but then tall men are sometimes handicapped by their height. my Dragon was his team's tunnel rat in Vietnam. armed with a knife and a pistol, he crawled into tunnels underground, into the blackest darkness to face whatever booby traps had been set. he was his team's strategist. he did get most of his men home.

there were a few who did not come home. i have written of them before. my Veteran's Day posting has it, i believe. but then there was his last tour.
of the eight men in the photo above, only one is still alive. my Dragon is fourth from the left. he is gone. the man fifth from the left is still alive. he has become my constant friend, the giver of the stories now.

on his last tour, my Dragon and his fire team were ambushed. they were involved in a terrible firefight. my Dragon carried one of his men across his back to the chopper. he was already dead but my Dragon was not going to leave him behind. the machine gunner on the chopper was killed in front of them. my Dragon got the rest of his badly injured men, the other 4, inside the chopper. he stood on the runner of the chopper laying down 700 rounds a minute with his M-16 to provide cover for them to take off. the NVC were laying down their own rounds that ate up the chopper enough that metal pulled away. my Dragon was impaled on the side and could not get inside the chopper. as it took off, he finished the last of his rounds, and had to stand on the runner outside the chopper all the way to base, over an hour. the scar was one he never spoke of. he sketched out the story of it for me but then his voice would drift off into silence.

it was his friend, my constant friend, who filled in the blank spots.
my Dragon served his country and now he is a name to be remembered in and around the car sales and Macy's Patriot sales on dresses and shoes. along with all the others who have served their country and are now only names on the lips of their grieving loved ones, he is now one of the flags that hopefully jog something in the minds of those hosting barbeques. maybe, when grandpa falls silent, lost in his memories of Vietnam, Korea, or WWII, the children will be told of the respect they should show him and why he is quiet. maybe over their hamburgers and hotdogs and steaks, heads will be bowed for a moment of silence to those who fought for the freedoms they enjoy.

i sound hostile and i do not mean to. i simply see that so many do not know what war costs in terms of the human soul.
my Dragon knew and he honored Veteran's every Memorial Day, really every day. in the mornings of Memorial Day, we would visit the cemetery. afternoons were spent walking the beach and paths all over Cape Ann. sometimes he talked. sometimes he did not talk. when he would fall silent he would just reach for my hand and squeeze it. and i knew. the memories were too much to speak of and i squeezed his hand back to let him know i accepted his silence. i was there for him, with him, always for him.

i love my Dragon and i am proud of who he is and his service to his country. he is my forever love. i will protect his memory as a Marine, as my husband, my friend, my lover, and simply as a man. i will know none better than he.

it has been a very rough few days for me financially and emotionally, but it is sometimes in the darkest most harrowing of times when we get an epiphany. he loves me. if he were here now, he would viciously defend me and protect me. i am his wife and he loved me. he loves me. i was loved. i am loved. however it can be said of someone who has died, i belonged to my Dragon and he belonged to me. i belong to him and he belongs to me.

"Ego dilecto meo et dilectus meus." ~ Song of Solomon 6:3. (i am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.)

i will survive and one day, God willing that i deserve the honor, we will be reunited in Heaven.

~

for all those who died for our country, and for the loved ones who are in sorrow all through this weekend i leave you with this poem:

"Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er,

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,

Dream of battled fields no more.

Days of danger, mights of waking."

~ Sir Walter Scott