July 4, 2009
In one of my fondest childhood memories, my mother and I were driving home one evening shortly before five. Over the sounds of the radio, I began to hear an instrument playing - a bugle, playing Taps. My mother stopped the car along the curb and told me to get out. Confused, I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed out of the car. We were within sight of the massive American flag that flew near the center of the base, and as we stood by the hood of our car and watched, the flag came down from the evening.
I remember watching those men fold the flag and carry it so reverently towards the nearest building, and I remember that I started to cry, because I knew that each and every man and woman out there - the other spouses and children in their cars, the soldiers who'd been on their evening marches, the others who had been on their evening PT run, and all the people in their BDUs saluting it as it came down - were making sacrifices in the name of that flag. Our soldiers would go to war for it, while those who stayed behind ran the risk of watching our fathers and uncles and sisters die under it. Our soldiers would fight tooth and nail to protect it and the beliefs and values that it stood for. And I knew that our soldiers, those soldiers standing there in that grass, would die to protect that flag and the people it flew over.
And I knew, at eight, that I would be one of the people they would die to save. That all those people, those soldiers, the ones I knew through my father and the ones I didn't, would be willing to lay down their lives if necessary so that I might live. I knew, too, that they would do this in the way that soldiers before them had and that soldiers after them would. They would not all die with glory or honor or even be remembered for their sacrifice - if they died at all, of course (and some of them, I've found in the years since, have died) - but they would do so in order to protect the things they cared deeply for.
It was quite the concept to try and wrap my head around back then, and it remains that way now.
So while other people think about barbecues and fireworks and sparklers and the signing of the Declaration of Independence and baseball, I think about our flag. My flag. And I think about my father, and my uncle, and my cousin, and all the people I know and have known and will know that have given themselves to the United States Military and who now fight under that flag. And I remember that day when I watched the flag come down from its post for the night, to sleep, so that it could rise again with the sun in the morning and continue its watch over the base and the people in its shadow.
All gave some. Some gave all.
Happy birthday, America.
Happy Independence Day, everyone.
I remember watching those men fold the flag and carry it so reverently towards the nearest building, and I remember that I started to cry, because I knew that each and every man and woman out there - the other spouses and children in their cars, the soldiers who'd been on their evening marches, the others who had been on their evening PT run, and all the people in their BDUs saluting it as it came down - were making sacrifices in the name of that flag. Our soldiers would go to war for it, while those who stayed behind ran the risk of watching our fathers and uncles and sisters die under it. Our soldiers would fight tooth and nail to protect it and the beliefs and values that it stood for. And I knew that our soldiers, those soldiers standing there in that grass, would die to protect that flag and the people it flew over.
And I knew, at eight, that I would be one of the people they would die to save. That all those people, those soldiers, the ones I knew through my father and the ones I didn't, would be willing to lay down their lives if necessary so that I might live. I knew, too, that they would do this in the way that soldiers before them had and that soldiers after them would. They would not all die with glory or honor or even be remembered for their sacrifice - if they died at all, of course (and some of them, I've found in the years since, have died) - but they would do so in order to protect the things they cared deeply for.
It was quite the concept to try and wrap my head around back then, and it remains that way now.
So while other people think about barbecues and fireworks and sparklers and the signing of the Declaration of Independence and baseball, I think about our flag. My flag. And I think about my father, and my uncle, and my cousin, and all the people I know and have known and will know that have given themselves to the United States Military and who now fight under that flag. And I remember that day when I watched the flag come down from its post for the night, to sleep, so that it could rise again with the sun in the morning and continue its watch over the base and the people in its shadow.
All gave some. Some gave all.
Happy birthday, America.
Happy Independence Day, everyone.