Jessica Scott

So today I was having a conversation with someone who shall remain nameless but let’s just say it was someone I’m close to.

I remarked how I’d gotten irritated over the weekend about the commercialization of Memorial Day and how so many folks seemed more concerned with sales than with remembering the fallen.

This person said “what, the whole country sucks because we didn’t all bow down and kiss your feet yesterday?”

This struck me rather forcefully. I understand that forceful opinions incite forceful responses and I’m self aware enough to realize that my opinions about how people were acting was a strong one.

What should I have said? Would it matter if this person was a stranger versus someone I’m close to?

What’s the right way to handle this?

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I deliberately did not blog about Memorial Day yesterday. I was going to. I was going to write about how when I was a junior in high school, my band took a trip to DC and I saw the Vietnam War Memorial and broke down into tears even though I knew no one who’d been in the war. But the names and the overwhelming sadness of the place hit me then and it hit me hard.

I couldn’t explain why I cried then nor can I explain the tears of my 17 year old self now.

I was going to write about how I took my daughters to the 1st Cavalry Division Operation Iraqi Freedom memorial. About how I showed them the 3rd Brigade patch that their daddy and I wore now and the patch that Daddy wore the last 2 times he deployed. I was going to write about how as I approached the memorial, my heart clenched and the tears came and I didn’t bother to stop them. I simply kept explaining things to my daughters with a new respect for the veterans who came before me and shed their own tears at memorials for their wars. I showed my daughters on a map where Mommy and Daddy were last year. Where Daddy was before my youngest was born and before my oldest could remember.

But I didn’t write about it.

I didn’t write because it hurts too damn much to watch the Twitter feeds about Dennis Hopper and Gary Coleman and sales and white shoes. It hurts because of the scant crowd at the Memorial Day parade or at the ceremony in Harker Heights where two of Fort Hood’s finest laid a wreath at the memorial.

It hurts because we pay lip service to honor our troops but when soldiers talk about child care issues or veterans issues at the VA, we hear people say we volunteered. We hear talk in Congress about cutting back medical payments for family members, failing to realize that yes, we volunteered but if our families are not taken care of, we won’t do so. It’s too hard being in a combat zone wondering if you’re going to come home for medical bills or worse, wonder if your family will even be able to get the medical attention they need.

The support for soldiers has been phenomenal on the surface. On the surface, people say thank you for your service and shake our hands. But what happens when the wars end and we’ve got thousands and thousands of people needing treatment for anxiety and depression and anger. What happens when employers won’t higher former soldiers with combat experience because they won’t take the risk that someone might snap? Where’s the support for the soldiers then?

We talk a good game about support the troops but that’s now. If we’re really going to support our soldiers, regardless of how we feel about the military, about the nation’s foreign policy, or the justifications for going to war, we need to dig in and understand that the war isn’t over when all the troops come home.

For many, it will just be beginning.

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I’ve been passively working on my family tree for a decade or so. Around 2000, when my last grandmother became sick, I developed an obsession to find out more about my grandparents and their lives.

Then I stopped because I was overcome by events. The folder went to my mom’s where it sat. When Gramma passed away, I as given boxes of pictures,which I put into albums and made my parents sit down and label.

So I’m pretty lucky. I’ve got 2 ginormous albums of my grandparents and their brothers and sisters. Pics of my parents and their siblings as kids.

But the coolest thing, I think was having pictures of my grandfathers in World War II. I’ve got Grampa Scott’s basic training graduation picture. I’ve got Grampa Cupero’s enlistment records from ancestry.com. Before he passes away, my Great Uncle Anthony told me that Grampa Cupero had been in the 9th Infantry Division, so I went a did some history. They were part of the invasion of North Africa during World War II.

I don’t have a ton. I’ve got pictures of my grandfathers posing in those typical GI photos with their buddies. Their friend’s names have been lost in history.

I think its pretty cool to be able to look back on my family’s history and see military service in there. My daughters will one day be able to look up their dad and me and find our military records out there. My grandfathers were part of World War II. My husband and I are both part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

With any luck, by the time they’re old enough to understand all that, the wars will be viewed as having been worth it. As having been the right thing to do. We’re too close right now to be able to make those judgments. Maybe with time, we’ll be able to see things more clearly.

Remember that this weekend is not about barbecue and picnics. Take some time to teach your kids about our military traditions. Teach them to say thank you to the grizzled VietNam vet you pass in the store. Teach them that there are those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the last century so that their moms and dads could live in peace and raise them, knowing that there are wolves guarding the gates.

But above all, remember the fallen this weekend. Remember those who have served. Their names might have been lost in the sands of time, but their sacrifice has not been.

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