Memorial Day 2016
30/05/16 05:08
I had just lead worship in a retirement home with a small congregation of residents. As I greeted the worshipers one asked if I could stay and visit with him. As the others left the chapel, we sat and he told me his story. He gave me permission to tell his story to others.
In the prayers offered during the service I had asked worshipers to remember in their prayers others who had gone before. An image came to his mind that was particularly striking.
The Korean War was the second war of his life. Drafted near the end of World War II, he had not seen combat in that war, but he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. They were ordered to defend a hill. It was winter. The fighting was bitter. Over a thousand of the enemy were killed in the battle. Their compatriots either could not or would not recover the bodies, which lay strewn over the hillside. In the bitter winter cold the bodies froze in their places. He could recall having to go on patrol, weaving their way around the frozen bodies. This task was especially difficult during the night. In some ways the post-battle patrols were more difficult than the battle had been.
During the battle he had a sense that he had to participate in the killing to avoid being killed. He had to shoot to protect the men with whom he was serving. It was loud and confusing and terrifying. There was no time to think about what they were doing or the larger ethics of war. They were reacting to a very real danger and defending themselves and the territory they had been ordered to defend. After the battle, when the hillside fell silent and night descended and the cold enveloped everything there was time to think.
He thought of those men who had died there - the frozen enemy casualties that littered the hillside. Those men were someone’s sons. They had sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers just like him. Some had wives. He looked at their bodies and most seemed to be younger than he. He tried to recall what he knew of the Chinese and North Korean armies against whom they were fighting. He realized that those men who had fallen must have been conscripted. They didn’t choose to fight, but rather were compelled to do so by the authorities of their government. Just like him, they had responded to orders from authorities and engaged in the battle with fear and a sense of kill or be killed. And now they were dead. And no one was coming to retrieve their bodies and return them to their loved ones.
The image has lingered with him for decades. Mostly he has been able to keep it in the corners of his mind and think of other things. He went on to live a productive life and was called back to service as an advisor in the early years of the War in Vietnam.
For whatever reason, a memorial day prayer touched his memory of the fallen enemy soldiers and the deep sadness he had felt when he thought of their lives and their circumstances.
In January 1866, the Ladies' Memorial Association in Columbus, Georgia, passed a motion agreeing that they would designate a day to throw flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers buried at the cemetery. However, the ladies didn't want this to be an isolated event, so Mary Ann Williams, the group's secretary, wrote a letter asking people to commemorate the war’s fallen soldiers on April 26 and sent it to newspapers all over the United States.
The letter was printed in dozens of newspapers but the date wasn’t correct in all of the various stories. As a result women in Columbus, Mississippi celebrated a day earlier, on April 25. Thus Columbus, Mississippi is credited with the first Memorial Day observance. On April 26, people all across the South heeded the letter and threw flowers on the graves of Civil War soldiers. Some Southern women noticed that Yankee graves, interspersed with the graves of their loved ones, sat untended. The graves were just laying there, kind of barren and the hearts of the women were warmed. They started to feel bad for the mothers who lost those children. They began to throw flowers on the Yankee graves. That story received widespread publication and Memorial Day became a day to honor all of the fallen of war and not just those who fought for one particular side.
War extracts a terrible cost from its participants. The huge sacrifices made cannot be recovered. The tragedies of battle are borne by both sides. The grief is immense.
150 years after those women decorated the graves of enemy fallen, an old man pushed his walker into the chapel of a nursing home in another part of the country. His war had been in another part of the world. His battle was far removed from those of the founders of Memorial Day. He might not even have known that the day originated from the observances of those who were on the losing side of that long-ago war. But as he prayed in that chapel and remembered the story of his life he came to a similar conclusion. The dead of all sides in a war deserve to be remembered. Their deaths remain a testimony to the tragedy of war.
The poet Francis Miles Finch wrote, “They banish our anger forever/When they laurel the graves of our dead!” The simple act of remembering that our loved ones aren’t the only victims of war begins to change the cycle of hatred and revenge. Healing begins when we glimpse the humanity of those we have labeled “enemy.”
Such is the power of memory and of a day set aside to remember. We can look once again at the old wounds, remember the former battles, recall the intensity of the times. And we can also remember the shared humanity of all of the participants and open ourselves to the end of hostilities and the possibilities of healing.
There are many scars left from the wars of our history and many tears that are yet to fall. May our memories open the door to healing and hope.
In the prayers offered during the service I had asked worshipers to remember in their prayers others who had gone before. An image came to his mind that was particularly striking.
The Korean War was the second war of his life. Drafted near the end of World War II, he had not seen combat in that war, but he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. They were ordered to defend a hill. It was winter. The fighting was bitter. Over a thousand of the enemy were killed in the battle. Their compatriots either could not or would not recover the bodies, which lay strewn over the hillside. In the bitter winter cold the bodies froze in their places. He could recall having to go on patrol, weaving their way around the frozen bodies. This task was especially difficult during the night. In some ways the post-battle patrols were more difficult than the battle had been.
During the battle he had a sense that he had to participate in the killing to avoid being killed. He had to shoot to protect the men with whom he was serving. It was loud and confusing and terrifying. There was no time to think about what they were doing or the larger ethics of war. They were reacting to a very real danger and defending themselves and the territory they had been ordered to defend. After the battle, when the hillside fell silent and night descended and the cold enveloped everything there was time to think.
He thought of those men who had died there - the frozen enemy casualties that littered the hillside. Those men were someone’s sons. They had sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers just like him. Some had wives. He looked at their bodies and most seemed to be younger than he. He tried to recall what he knew of the Chinese and North Korean armies against whom they were fighting. He realized that those men who had fallen must have been conscripted. They didn’t choose to fight, but rather were compelled to do so by the authorities of their government. Just like him, they had responded to orders from authorities and engaged in the battle with fear and a sense of kill or be killed. And now they were dead. And no one was coming to retrieve their bodies and return them to their loved ones.
The image has lingered with him for decades. Mostly he has been able to keep it in the corners of his mind and think of other things. He went on to live a productive life and was called back to service as an advisor in the early years of the War in Vietnam.
For whatever reason, a memorial day prayer touched his memory of the fallen enemy soldiers and the deep sadness he had felt when he thought of their lives and their circumstances.
In January 1866, the Ladies' Memorial Association in Columbus, Georgia, passed a motion agreeing that they would designate a day to throw flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers buried at the cemetery. However, the ladies didn't want this to be an isolated event, so Mary Ann Williams, the group's secretary, wrote a letter asking people to commemorate the war’s fallen soldiers on April 26 and sent it to newspapers all over the United States.
The letter was printed in dozens of newspapers but the date wasn’t correct in all of the various stories. As a result women in Columbus, Mississippi celebrated a day earlier, on April 25. Thus Columbus, Mississippi is credited with the first Memorial Day observance. On April 26, people all across the South heeded the letter and threw flowers on the graves of Civil War soldiers. Some Southern women noticed that Yankee graves, interspersed with the graves of their loved ones, sat untended. The graves were just laying there, kind of barren and the hearts of the women were warmed. They started to feel bad for the mothers who lost those children. They began to throw flowers on the Yankee graves. That story received widespread publication and Memorial Day became a day to honor all of the fallen of war and not just those who fought for one particular side.
War extracts a terrible cost from its participants. The huge sacrifices made cannot be recovered. The tragedies of battle are borne by both sides. The grief is immense.
150 years after those women decorated the graves of enemy fallen, an old man pushed his walker into the chapel of a nursing home in another part of the country. His war had been in another part of the world. His battle was far removed from those of the founders of Memorial Day. He might not even have known that the day originated from the observances of those who were on the losing side of that long-ago war. But as he prayed in that chapel and remembered the story of his life he came to a similar conclusion. The dead of all sides in a war deserve to be remembered. Their deaths remain a testimony to the tragedy of war.
The poet Francis Miles Finch wrote, “They banish our anger forever/When they laurel the graves of our dead!” The simple act of remembering that our loved ones aren’t the only victims of war begins to change the cycle of hatred and revenge. Healing begins when we glimpse the humanity of those we have labeled “enemy.”
Such is the power of memory and of a day set aside to remember. We can look once again at the old wounds, remember the former battles, recall the intensity of the times. And we can also remember the shared humanity of all of the participants and open ourselves to the end of hostilities and the possibilities of healing.
There are many scars left from the wars of our history and many tears that are yet to fall. May our memories open the door to healing and hope.