Memorial Day

It is all too easy while living in Mongolia to forget the holidays that we celebrate as Americans - as my recent interns Kevin & John will attest to. Even today I was planning to call the U.S. Embassy in Ulan Bator to discuss a few questions when a friend reminded me that they were closed for Memorial Day today.

The sacrifices of our soldiers is something all of us should recognize. Being a missionary has given me a different appreciation for the sacrifices that soldiers and their families make daily. Except our situations are very different because I am not facing death each day and I am not separated from my wife and children.

I will never forget watching a Marine band at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery. I had traveled back to Annapolis to visit the United States Naval Academy. Those of us visiting the Naval Academy traveled down to Arlington to hear a Marine band. As the band played The Star Spangled Banner we all stood and put our hands over our hearts except for the sailors among us. The stood at attention saluting the flag rather than placing their hands over their hearts. You could see simply by the way that they stood that they were more disciplined than the rest of us. For them the Tomb of the Unknowns was not simply a memorial; for them it was a possibility. But they were willing to give their lives in service to their country.

So to commemorate the sacrifices that our soldiers have made and are making today, I offer this poem that I received several years ago.

I watched the flag pass by one day:
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud.
With hair cut square and eyes alert
Distinct in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were their graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of Taps one night
When everything was still,
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered how many times
That Taps had meant Amen
When the flag had draped the coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons, and others
With interrupted lives.
I thought about the graveyard
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.