There are few things in life that bug me more than what happens every year on Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day is not the unofficial first day of summer. It is not National BBQ Day. It is not an excuse to have a furniture sale, auto sale, or department store sale. It is The Day set aside to remember those that have given their lives in military service for our country. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we need to spend the entire day in quiet mourning and reflection, but people PLEASE!! at least think about what the day really means at some point. It is not to honor past and current service members, ONLY those that have made the ultimate sacrifice! The constant attempt to tie in the "Thank You For Your Service" crap for the day is nauseating. If I am walking around alive then this day is to remember someone else. More recently, the media tries to get it right, but they still fuck it up.
For the week leading up to Memorial Day I fly the POW/MIA flag below the US flag on my lighted flagpole. On Memorial Day, I remove it so that I can lower the US flag to half-staff from sunrise until noon, when the US flag is raised to full staff and the POW/MIA flag goes back up until the next day and stays up until early June. This method of flying the US flag is spelled out in US Code 4 Section 7 Paragraph (m). The following poem was written at the height of WWI, and should be familiar to any choir members I may be preaching to.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Why is Memorial Day so important to me? PFC Stephen D. Tingley, USMC was a childhood friend that could always crack me up. In elementary school we had tons of fun and got into a lot of trouble together. When I first met him in the 4th grade and until sometime in middle school, he wore braces on his legs because of something wrong with his hips, that he was supposed to outgrow. Sometime in middle school I think it was, the braces came off and he became quite the athlete. In middle school and early high school we played baseball together. In high school he played varsity baseball and soccer. Since we ended up at different high schools, in later years we drifted apart. Apparently Stephen joined the Marines right out of school, where I joined the Army Reserves more than a year after graduation. I was married two months when we got the news about the cowardly savage killing of sleeping Marines in Beirut by jihadi scum. Just about everyone in town that knew Stephen were at his funeral. There was a horse drawn wagon carrying his flag-draped coffin to the cemetery for military honors. He was not buried there. I saw classmates I had not seen since middle school, but no one had a happy reunion, it was the saddest thing you ever saw, and the silence was deafening. It will be 38 years since his passing this year, and I still have the gaping hole in my heart. I asked his father many years later where Stephen was buried. He would only say he was cremated, leading me to believe the family has his ashes. I also know his sister, but can't bring myself to ask her either. There is also some confusion as to his rank. He was definitely a PFC when he died, but I have also seen references to him as Lance Corporal. He may have been posthumously promoted.
The Marines were in Lebanon as part of a multi-national peace keeping force, not an offensive combat role. As we know, jihadi scum only relish in death and war, so they had to take out the infidel peace keepers. This is one of the many reasons I hope to kill at least one jihadi (but hopefully more) before I die.
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| The Ellington, CT Memorial to the war dead |
On my biker vest, which is mostly military themed for The Patriot Guard, I have an "In Memory Of" patch for Stephen on the back.
I too lost a brother on that day. We were in the drum corps together. He stole my first girlfriend. Every October I go through the memories. Steve was listed as a Lance Corporal as well. I can't bring myself to say he died for his country though obviously he was willing to. I still see it as murder. RIP.
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