Monday, November 13, 2006

Veteran's Day Weekend

I didn't title this post well. It could have been titled a lot of things. I have so many thoughts about attending the funeral of my friend, yet I think it somehow base to write something on the internet about it. For that reason I won't use any names. I don't ever want a search engine to find this post in a way to link it to my friend. That would be too trivial a thing, I think.

First, I know that all of us have lost people to something or other. Most of us have lost people who were far too young to go. In that respect, my weekend was not unique. I have to think, however, that some aspects of it were.

Twenty-five of us graduated class of 1989, Company H-1, the Hawgs.  Twenty-two of us traveled from around the world to see our fallen friend home.

The Midwestern town, in the middle of nowhere to most of us, turned out to honor the tenth child of a family who had produced remarkable children, who had gone away to West Point, who had gone on to be promoted to field grade, who had carried the burdens of America's struggles for seventeen years, plus four at the Academy, who had trained and nurtured thousands of enlisted men and junior officers, who was a brother, an uncle, a cousin, a friend, and a warrior.

That town touched me. I, an outsider, with my fellow Hawgs, were welcomed and given a place of honor. I flew in Friday, and then drove to the viewing, which had to be a closed casket due to the nature of IEDs in Iraq. I kept looking from my classmates, to the widow, who I last knew well as a girlfriend of my buddy back in college, and now stood not only as the grieving mother of three little girls but also as the colonel's wife who had the instinctive task to provide the dignity and comfort to the men who followed my friend. I looked from time to time to the casket. There he was, such a beautiful man. Right there, under our flag.

The honor guard, by pure chance, was from the 101st, my friends division.  They were led there by one of our closest friends, also a lieutenant colonel, the only one of the Hawgs to become an aviator, a post I strived for and did not achieve. The military lineage in the room was impressive. My fallen friend had served in the Currahee unit of the one-oh-one, the unit depicted in the Band of Brothers book and miniseries. The soldiers of the honor guard were superb. They stood for hours while the thousand or two thousand filed through, slowly, most having to wait outside the Catholic Church in 30 degree temperature for their turn to touch the family, to file by my friend, to look into the eyes of my friend's wife.

There was a rosary. I confess I'd never seen one performed from start to finish. It was impressive. It took quite a while.

Back to glancing at my fallen friend's wife and her girls.

Oh, how much our girls mean to us. How strong are the women who love men who wear the uniform, who glue their homes and families together while the dark nature of mankind calls the men away to tend to humanity's brushfires and firestorms. How much we need them. How much they love their men at arms.  They must, to do what they do. Even those of us, like me, who did not stay in uniform as long, recognize how special our women are to understand and embrace us.

My fallen friend's wife is among the strongest of women I have ever witnessed, and gracious. Funny now that my memory of her is of a girl that we happened to come across at a football game tailgate, a very long time ago. Now she was a widow.  The colonel's wife.  At one point during the Friday ceremony, after hours of embracing and, indeed, comforting, the long line of people, she made a request.  The funeral director approached a group of us and said, "[she] said to bring her her Hawgs."

I go to pieces now remembering that.  Oh God. Yes, we were there, and we all love each other. She asked for us, and we had nothing to give but our presence, and many memories. I noted the wedding ring on her finger and wondered how long it would be there. I thought a lot of things as I saw friends, some combat veterans of one, two, three, and even more wars, my friends, who along with me wept like children, over and over again.

I spent time with those old roommates and teammates and platoon and company and battalion-mates over the long weekend of tears and laughter and remembering and even planning for the future.  Most were, like me, civilians now. Most were doing very well; leaders in their fields and serving their country in one way or another, and making money while doing it. Some were still in uniform, their physical fitness making them appear very much like I remember them in the barracks of West Point.

Some are bitter, having lost too many soldiers and marriages and years to this country's wars, yet are still dedicated to Duty, Honor, and Country. Some are sharpened to a razor's edge, as knowledgeable and capable as any man can be in this time and conflict. Not just technically and tactically proficient, but smart as hell. I spoke to close friends who filled in the holes for me about whether or not we are winning this war, and whether or not we are on our way to engaging the larger global war on terror. I learned a lot, but mostly confirmed what I already knew.

Nutshell: the Army is winning it. The politicians are likely to mess that up.

My friends, my old drinking buddies, are in the driver's seat and on the cutting edge, and that blows my mind, though it does not surprise me. They lead hundreds to thousands of men, and make policies and decisions that affect all of us in some way or another. Over the past week, I've had to explain to several people who wondered aloud how such a high-ranking person would be killed that they do not understand the United States Army. My friends are the ones who lead from the front, who get out of the vehicles and look the townspeople in the eye, whether to express friendship or to assert domination.  They kick in the doors, personally.

On Saturday the whole county turned out for the funeral. The Catholic priest did a marvelous job, and painted a full picture of the son, brother, cousin, uncle, and soldier.

I was shattered. He was so marvelous, and this was so sad.

I should mention that some idiot cult "church" that I won't stoop to name showed up to hold up disgusting signs and sing songs and press their young children into service to hate. I watched child abuse before my very eyes.  The Patriot Guard, a group of grizzled bikers invited by the family, were there to stand in the cold and keep those idiots who claimed to speak for God far enough away not to wreck things for those grieving and those good small town people who were standing in the cold to pay their heartfelt respects.

After that we went to the cemetery. Our friend, another colonel, had the job of reading the orders that awarded, posthumously, a purple heart and bronze star. I looked him in the eye just before he began to pop off before a crowd of several hundred, saw him draw in his breath as his shoulders stooped and he breathed "Oh God" and then launched into a perfect military presentation of what I roughly think of as Attention To Orders. He was marvelous, my aviator friend. Tears gave way to duty and the honor of a fellow soldier and friend. He was destroyed as he gave the command to publish the orders, and so were we all, but he pushed out his breath in a clear and loud voice as was his duty.

The honor guard fired the twenty-one gun salute. If you've only seen it on television, you haven't seen it. We who are familiar with the weapon know the sound of the M16; we are intimate with it. Having it fired close by to mark the passage of a friend reverberates through your bones, though, and is nothing like firing it on the range or in combat.

We retired to a bar in the small town in the nation's heartland. We did that because our fallen friend had at some time expressed that if he fell, he wanted to buy everyone a drink to toast him. Classy, and soldierly, and Hawg-like at the same time. So that's what we did. We had one on him.

"Shattered" is the only word I can use to express what I've been feeling.  I've been emotional for a full week. My friend is and was a hero. I am honored to have spent a whole lot of time with a lot of heroes.

I love him. I miss him.

His funeral began at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Veterans Day.

I later stood at the gravesite after it had been leveled and seeded, and then it was real. Then I knew he was part of what was around him, the farming folk who were his family and preceded him into death. I got to say goodbye then.

Root Hawg.

Root Hawg.

Goodbye, friend.

That was my weekend.