Memorial Day: If you’re reading this…
I’ve posted this song before, but I think it bears repeating, especially on Memorial Day.
It’s Tim McGraw’s extraordinarily moving song “If You’re Reading This“:
If you’re readin’ this
My momma’s sittin’ there
Looks like I only got a one way ticket over here.
I sure wish I could give you one more kiss
War was just a game we played when we were kids
Well I’m layin’ down my gun
I’m hanging up my boots
I’m up here with God and we’re both watchin’ over youSo lay me down
In that open field out on the edge of town
And know my soul
Is where my momma always prayed that it would go.
If you’re readin’ this I’m already home.If you’re readin’ this
Half way around the world
I won’t be there to see the birth of our little girl
I hope she looks like you
I hope she fights like me
And stands up for the innocent and the weak
I’m layin’ down my gun,
I’m hanging up my boots
Tell dad I don’t regret that I followed in his shoes…
The first time I ever heard the song I got the chills as the lyrics unfolded and I realized what it was about, and then again and again as the heartstrings were jerked harder and harder as the song went on.
I say “the heartstrings were jerked,” which sounds as though I’m being critical and the song is manipulative. Well, it’s manipulative in the sense that it means to affect the listener emotionally, and it means to sell songs. But I see nothing wrong with that, if the emotion is sincere and deep. Most of us do, or should, feel a very strong gratitude to the men and women who sacrificed their lives to defend liberty here and abroad, and a very strong sorrow that it was necessary. On Memorial Day, we thank them.
Love that song, Neo. The latest song that pulls my heartstrings is “I wish grandpas never died” by Riley Green. I was especially lose to both of mine and I still miss them everyday.
yep, it most certainly pulls at your heartstrings. Especially this stanza:
“There’s going to come a day
When you’ll move on
And find some one else
And that’s OK”
That says a lot about someone’s selflessness – it is okay to move on after I’m gone.
Thank you Neo, my US Army years, 1966 to 1970 were and are special memories and like most of my old time Veteran friends we would do again without hesitation.
My father had his mother and my mother convinced he was driving the chaplain around Division rear. That lasted until his Silver Star and third Purple Heart hit the local papers. We found a bound volumn of his letters. They changed in tone about that time. He, too, encouraged my mother to move on, just in case.
I’ve notitifed Next of Kin and done survivors assistance. Kept up with the family to today. And my brother was killed overseas. The distance this death goes into a family is more than one would think.
May I invite your wonderful readers to learn of the sacrifice of one Marine, my older brother, now so long ago. Gone but never forgotten.
https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/13366/THOMAS-G-DINEEN-JR/page/3/
(Little doubt, had fate allowed, that today he’d be a faithful Neo reader!)
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/americas-honor-8.php
This is a good piece about our warriors. They are amazing people.
My great grandfather received the Medal of Honor for capturing a battle flag at the battle of Five Forks, which ultimately kept the Confederate army from uniting at Richmond. He was taken to Baltimore by his older brother to enlist and served mostly trying to keep the Confeds from penetrating through Maryland. He would have lived very near slave owners, so he was fighting for a cause, not because of Northern or Southern loyalty.
My dad served in the Navy, but was kept in Norfolk to repair planes, which he had built before being drafted.
I also had cousins who served.
Le Mot Juste:
I am so sorry. He sounds like a wonderful man. A great great loss.
I went to the cemetery today to visit my Mom and Dad. Dad was US Navy, enlisted before the war. He started his war at Pearl Harbor. My Mom at age 20 went with her best friend from Illinois farm to SF ammunition plant. My brother and I also Navy vet. My Father in Law was 82nd Airborne. Fought across France into Germany.
Many years ago on a vacation trip my wife and I visited the US Cemetery in Southern France. I had the honor of placing a wreath in the Chapel.
My Dad’s Great Uncles were in the CFA, Two died and two survived. My Great Great Great Granddad was veteran of War of 1812.
I like so many others here have Military family backgrounds. We all love America.
The Grave – Don Mclean (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70eG5FDQ1xI
The grave that they dug him had flowers
Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
He’s gone.
When the wars of our nation did beckon,
A man barely twenty did answer the calling.
Proud of the trust that he placed in our nation,
He’s gone,
But eternity knows him, and it knows what we’ve done.
And the rain fell like pearls on the leaves of the flowers
Leaving brown, muddy clay where the earth had been dry.
And deep in the trench he waited for hours,
As he held to his rifle and prayed not to die.
But the silence of night was shattered by fire
As guns and grenades blasted sharp through the air.
And one after another his comrades were slaughtered.
In morgue of marines, alone standing there.
He crouched ever lower, ever lower with fear.
“they can’t let me die! the can’t let me die here!
I’ll cover myself with the mud and the earth.
I’ll cover myself! I know I’m not brave!
The earth! the earth! the earth is my grave.”
The grave that they dug him had flowers
Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
He’s gone.
For me, Memorial Day is always a day to remember the men I had the honor of serving with who didn’t make it home. Though we fought in Vietnam and weren’t allowed to win, it was a noble cause – allowing the Catholics of South Vietnam to remain free of godless Communism.
Their names – Squadron-mates: M.D. McMican, Gerry Romano, Tom Plants, and Bill Amspacher. Navy pilot buddies: Gerry Roberts, Hal Gray, and Bill Carey. All KIA over North Vietnam.
I cherish the memories of those fine men. But I am always in awe of the vast ranks of men and women who have given their last full measure of devotion to this nation and what it stands for. A long line stretching from the American Revolution to the present day. It humbles me and makes me proud to be an American May we always have patriots who are willing to serve.
The city of Santa Clara has a veterans memorial in its central park. On the path to that memorial they allowed a private memorial “tombstone” to a resident. He died in combat in Iraq.
There were fresh flowers there today. We saw them as we walked by to stop at the veterans memorial.
Wish I could find it. Read a reference to some little town in Missouri. Somehow, during the Civil War, a Federal soldier showed up in town. He died. They have always put flowers on the grave of “the little Yankee boy”.
Wish I could find it. Read a reference to some little town in Missouri. Somehow, during the Civil War, a Federal soldier showed up in town. He died. They have always put flowers on the grave of “the little Yankee boy”.
Thx JJ for remembering why the US was fighting in Vietnam: “allowing the Catholics of South Vietnam to remain free of godless Communism.”
Had the US helped the S. Viet Army fight back against the treaty-violating ’75 invasion of the N. Viet commies, perhaps S. Vietnam would be competing with S. Korea as a nice, not perfect, capitalist Asian Tiger — and the Cambodian Killing Fields wouldn’t have been allowed to happen. US Democrats, like J. Kerry, were opposed to enforcing the Paris Peace Treaty.
All who went to the Naval Academy in 1974 received a war ribbon (bar) for being in the service during active hostilities. I also got a second one for being an expert shot with pistol. Looked great on dress uniforms.
We were sad last week when we went to the local crematorium for the funeral of a second cousin (same great grandparents) of my wife.
We wore masks during the Catholic ceremony.
“Amazing Grace” was sung, in Czech, by Karel Gott, who himself only died last year (at 80). Here is an old video of him with lovely Tatra mountains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9BqbpQgouY
” A long line stretching from the American Revolution to the present day.” – J J
The land of the free, because of the brave.
Soldiers hold a replica of the flag that flew over Ft McHenry in September, 1814, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the ode that became our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8eac0d7d7d4281985adee11a8db62eb7b683b62095b9c0e2d32f23a7cca9469a.jpg
Picture of the original.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/star-spangled-banner-back-on-display-83229098/
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71Rlc6tVwHL._AC_SL1350_.jpg
Some of us serve, some don’t recently thanks to the DNA stuff I found out I have ancestors who go back to Kind Phillips War in the 1600’s here in what would become the USA, parts of my family fought in every conflict, in the Civil War on both sides, except the Spanish American War, up to the later Sand Box wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am so proud to be a part of a family that would answer the call and show up do their best, in the more recent years our family members were at Bastogne, over Normandy and then in Chosin and later in Viet Nam along with the other more recent conflicts, after my nieces husband got out after his 20 years I think we are done for right now.
And yes my ancestors in Virginia did own slaves and they took some of them to Missouri in the border states where that family name is still present with some nice folks who are not white. They were making barrels in Orange County Virginia in the early 1700’s as coopers living between Madison and Jefferson and went to a Baptist church were slaves were recognized as full members of the church. Madison represented the church in a trial when they refused to pay taxes the church of England in those early days.
History is most interesting and never easy.
Maybe some of Neo’s readers are not PowerLine aficionados as well (raise your hands), so you might have missed this annual post about Medal of Honor recipients, and why our culture is impoverished because they are being forgotten.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/americas-honor-8.php
Tom Grey, thanks for the touching video. Amazing Grace is amazing in any language. And the scenes from the Tatra mountains spur memories of my childhood days in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Yesterday was quite a day for me. Had several exchanges with old squadron-mates. Just filled with memories of both good and bad times – very bittersweet. We speculated on what we would have done if we could have known that Congress would eventually abandon South Vietnam. One of the senior Air Group pilots was a former POW from the Korean War. He had been through the meat grinder once and he recognized that LBJ and McNamara weren’t letting us hit the targets that mattered. His philosophy was that no pissant target was worth losing a pilot. I was more gung-ho. I believed we could bomb the North Vietnamese into a peace treaty ala Korea and we should be aggressive. As the war drug on I slowly came to realize that he was right. I became quite bitter after Congress decided to abandon the South Vietnamese. All the loss of young lives was down the toilet. For what, exactly? Over the years I came to terms with my bitterness, but as a result, I’m against “limited wars” or “police actions.” If we’re going to use our military, the goal should always be to win unconditional victory as quickly as possible. I wish our leaders believed that.
Kissinger once remarked, after the dems cut aid to ARVN, that being an enemy of the US is bad. Being a friend can be fatal.
With all due respect to Dr. K, South Vietnam was an ally, not a friend, and not really an ally either, as all the support ran one way.
I was against getting involved in that war (which happened before my political time, but we all have opinions); however, once in, I believed it should be won decisively (IOW, very like what happened in Korea; we didn’t actually “win” but we did get the Norks to stop fighting, and that’s probably all that could have been done in ‘Nam) and both regimes then left to sort things out without interference from any other countries other than maintaining some kind of truce (yeah, right –).
The Democrats’ lies during the war, their obstruction of Nixon’s efforts to win it, and their despicable abandonment of the South’s people afterwards started me down the road to the Right.
And don’t get me started on John Kerry.