Happy Late Memorial Day
Reflections on our dead
Memorial day is normally for honoring the men and women who died in our wars. It has come to mean a three day holiday and a barbecue. I don’t blame those who feel that way. It was beautiful yesterday with the sun shining on all alike.
I just have too many dead to look at this day as a holiday. Even though most of my dead didn’t die in the wars, they did die later. Some like my grandfather, left us a record of his exploits in the Navy on the Pacific side of WWII. Others like my dad only told little stories of shipboard life.
My late hubby, may he rest in peace, served three tours in Vietnam. His nineteenth birthday was in country and at the same time he got a telegram from the draft, telling him to show up at his hometown to be processed in the Army. When he should it to his Sargeant and asked to be re-processed, the Sargeant just gave him a look and told him they would take care of it.
He did go back to Washington State when his foster father died and then was whisked back to Vietnam. He told me once that the reason he kept going back to Vietnam is he felt guilty at leaving his buddies there. A lot of them felt that way.
Agent Orange was a constant in their lives there. Everything was sprayed with that chemical. It was in their food and their drink. It was almost like they bathed in it. So no wonder so many of them died of cancers later— horrible virulent cancers.
Very few of them have lived past sixty. He was sixty-seven when he died and the cancer was so rapid in his body that we found out the end of July he had it. By September he was dead.
Many of the soldiers with him, they worked as radio men in the field, died early. All of them are sick with some type of cancer. So yes, in my mind they died because of the aftermath of that war.
One of the things that has always jerked at my chain is that Congress never declared war, so these men died in “UN actions” or “conflicts.” We, as a country, weaseled out at helping these men and some women (remember nurses were in country too) in medical care. Even care for their families after they died. It was five years or more after Otto died, that I received paperwork saying I could reapply for DIC.
When I was younger and more blonde, I had wondered of the bitterness of many of those combat vets. Now I understand. I too did a stint in the Navy as an electronics tech in the crypto field. I even tried to get medical for cancers and an auto-immune disease from the VA. I was told that I was not considered injured by my medical service because the auto-immune disease showed nine years later.
What does that remind you of? The gulf war syndrome. I won’t go into details about how the vets who had it were first told it was in their heads (also my experience) and then were told that the VA couldn’t give them pensions because it did not show until after their service.
Anyway this is not about me or my experiences.
No matter how much you may dislike the wars we have been involved in— we should not blame the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who participated. They were locked into a contract and war sucks. Most of them came back with physical, mental, and emotional injuries.
As we are sitting at the brink of another possible war, I hope cooler heads prevail. Let’s not fight another war. Let’s not maim another generation of men and women.
Happy Memorial Day.
So Very True!☺️🥲🙏🏼🇺🇸💞So Many Stories~So Many Lives Ending too soon🥺 So Many Living through the Wars & coming home~Changed Forever🥲🇺🇸💓May we who Survived be Forever Grateful for the Many who Fought in many different ways for Freedom😊🙏🏼🇺🇸💞
My high school graduating class, Indian Lake, in Ohio, 1964, recently lost another Vietnam veteran. Johnny Joe, as we called him, suffered from Agent Orange for years. He died about a month ago. Our 60th reunion is September 28th. He won't be there.
We also lost two young men, boys, really, in 1966. Neither was 20.
One posthumously received the Medal of Honor a year or so ago. Herb sat behind me in senior English. He was one of those smart, sexy, bad boys. He barely knew I existed. I knew he existed! At the Medal of Honor ceremony I learned how he died. He died cruelly, as a hero, saving the lives of the others in his platoon.
Lynn was a medic. He was shot to death running into the battle to retrieve a wounded soldier.
A friend's brother died during his 2nd tour of duty. While he was home, his wife got pregnant. When the baby was born, it was clear something wrong. The military doctors were stumped, doncha know. The civilian doctors knew exactly what was wrong. Maybe a decade ago the military finally admitted that Agent Orange could cause birth defects, including cognitive delays.
I don't have any good things to say about that war.
For Herb and Lynn, the grief gets worse each year. Not the sobbing, "I can't believe they're gone," grieving, but the long lived grief of knowing all the things that makes a life. The good and the bad. That first baby. The first home. Getting laid off. Getting a better job. Losing your parents. Getting some awful disease, then getting over it. Or learning to live with. Going to a class reunion and wondering about how old your classmates look! I grieve for them.
Johnny Joe was in a wheelchair for a long time. I don't how else he suffered.
My friend's niece has lived a different life than she would have without Agent Orange. Her mother never remarried. And he never came home.
"It was a dirty little war..."
I don't have any good words for that war.