|
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.

 |