A song for Memorial Day
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…
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.
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.
Charles Ives, “Decoration Day”, (Bernstein, NY Philharmonic, [8:34]): https://youtu.be/y4JkW9haf4g
Amen.
Tim’s song is the best expression of the meaning of Memorial Day and the gratitude we owe the soldiers and families who have paid the ultimate price to preserve the Freedom our Founding Fathers sought for us. I tear up every time I hear the song. Thanks for your short reintroduction to Tim’s most powerful song. I agree with you 100%.
Memorial Day 2023
Remembering Private (then Corporal) Daniel E. Rosen
Radio Operator
198th Light Infantry Brigade
KIA May 14, 1969
Tam Ky, then South Vietnam
“Never Forget”
I had to write letters of condolences to the families of my squadron mates who died in Vietnam. It’s an exercise in trying to find the right words to tell them how much we loved, depended on, and appreciated their son/husband. I felt inadequate to the task but did my best. Tim McGraw’s song stirs those memories.
As I grow older, my memories are fading, but I will always remember the names of my family and friends who gave their lives in service to this country.
They are:
My uncle – Larry Goreski – KIA over Germany
Squadron mates – M.D. McMican, Gerry Romano, Bill Amspacher, and Tom Plants – KIA over North Vietnam
Close friends – Gerry Roberts, Hal Gr ay, and Bill Carey – all KIA in Vietnam.
In my memory, they will always be young men of character and bravery.
On this Memorial Day we honor them and all the other brave souls who gave their lives so we can live free.
In remembrance. Have a good Memorial Day.
“ The minstrel boy to the war is gone
In the ranks of death you’ll find him
His father’s sword he hath girded on
And his wild harp slung behind him
“Land of Song” cried the warrior bard
“Tho’ all the world betrays thee
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard
One faithful harp shall praise thee”
The minstrel fell but the foeman’s chain
Could not bring that proud soul under
The harp he lov’d ne’er spoke again
For he tore its chords asunder
And said, “No chains shall sully thee
Thou soul of love and brav’ry
Thy songs were made for the pure and free
They shall never sound in slavery”
JJ, a neighbor here is an immigrant from Vietnam, a refugee who endured poverty and suppression before managing to get out. He takes time to personally thank every Vietnam vet he comes across. On his behalf, thanks to you and to your squadron mates and friends. May their memories be eternal.
Kate, your thanks and those of your Vietnamese friend are deeply, deeply appreciated.
My grandmother on my mother’s side of the family always referred to Memorial Day by its older name, Decoration Day– which goes back to 1868. Although its original sponsor, John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, introduced the observance in honor of the Union soldiers who fell during the Civil War, there were earlier occasions on which the graves of both Confederate and Union dead were decorated with flowers. One such gesture occurred “when four women of Columbus, Mississippi, gathered together on April 25, 1866, at Friendship Cemetery to decorate the graves of the Confederate soldiers. They also felt moved to honor the Union soldiers buried there, and to note the grief of their families, by decorating their graves as well. The story of their gesture of humanity and reconciliation is held by some writers as the inspiration of the original Memorial Day.” One brief account of the women’s action appeared in the New York Tribune: “The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by nobler sentiments than many of their sisters, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.” This short news report inspired Francis Miles Finch, a judge and academic associated with the early years of Cornell University, to write a poem titled “The Blue and the Gray.”
My grandmother could recite the entire poem by heart, and used to recite it to me on Memorial Day every year:
By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray.
These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Under the laurel, the Blue,
Under the willow, the Gray.
From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray. . . .
Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done,
In the storm of the years that are fading
No braver battle was won:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Under the blossoms, the Blue,
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day,
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.
In regard to reconciliation, I think of Tim McGraw himself as a fine example of that spirit. He was born in 1967, the illegitimate child of a teenage waitress and a minor-league baseball player who became famous in the majors as Tug McGraw. Until Tim was 11 years old, he thought his mother’s husband was his father until he found his birth certificate hidden in a closet. His mother took him to meet Tug, who initially refused to acknowledge Tim as his son. After Tim turned 18, Tug changed his mind, paid for Tim’s college education, and the two men became close until Tug’s death of brain cancer in 2004.
I had always thought of Tug as the ace pitcher who struck out Willie Wilson to win the Phillies their first-ever World Series in 1980, but I’ve also come to think of him as a man who won an even greater victory in learning how to be a real father. As for Tim, one of his best-known songs is the one he recorded in 2004 shortly after his father’s death and in honor of his father: “Live Like You Were Dying”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9TShlMkQnc&ab_channel=TimMcGrawOfficialVideos
Some commentary on the different military-focused holy-days, and a memorial to one of the heroes of WW2.
https://notthebee.com/article/fire-ittheres-more-of-them-than-there-are-of-us
The image on that video at 3:35 showing the young boy holding back tears as he is given the flag is just heartbreaking!
Kate, there is a huge Vietnamese expat community in Orange County, Ca and many work at the UCI Medical Center, where I am a frequent visitor. Some were born here, others brought as children. So many stories; and so much understanding and appreciation for the blessings they now enjoy.
I did meet an older gentleman as we were launching our kayaks on Newport Bay. He was wearing a baseball cap with a Vietnamese flag emblem. As is my habit, I engaged him. He was Army. He and his wife escaped in a boat and were picked up after days at sea by an Israeli freighter. They spent five years in Israel, and their children were born there. I asked if they were not treated well in Israel; and he said they were treated very well; “but, our goal was always to make it to the United States because it is the greatest country on earth.”
JJ, it all started in flight training. I escorted the remains of a member of my flight back home, and represented the Navy at his funeral. Many sacrifices; most little noted beyond the grief stricken.
I am not worthy. But I offer thanks to those who fell; and to those who mourn them still.
B at 11:07 pm said: “Many sacrifices; most little noted beyond the grief stricken.”
Sadly, true.
Somebody once said country music is maudlin. Life is maudlin, for those who live it and participate in it. There is nothing fake about this song or others like it.
During a church class about hymns, it occurred to me that country music includes many religious songs, some old time hymns, some original.
You can look at any well-known artist’s list and see what I mean. Johnny Cash has a number of them, and one, “The Man Comes Around” is unique.
I mentioned Alan Jackson’s “Are You Washed in The Blood of The Lamb?” and found everybody knew of the hymn but didn’t expect to hear it in a mainline protestant church. Country concert, maybe.
Went to Branson some time back. Of six shows, the performers asked veterans to stand in five.
Two areas not otherwise touched in pop music.
I don’t know if you could do a song like this in a concert.
PA Cat, thanks much for the link to that song by Tim McGraw.
Absolute dynamite.