Monika Basile's Blog: Confessions of a Bleeding Heart - Posts Tagged "soldier"
Memorial Day
There are no picnics in the jungle. There aren’t barbeques in the desserts. There isn’t a parade in the hearts of men and women who go to war, who fight for their country, or for those who stand by and wait. And still there is no way to express the amount of gratitude for our countrymen for being so utterly brave.
We cannot raise the dead. We cannot erase the damage of what each serviceman has witnessed and experienced and the horrors they carry with them. Our honoring of their bravery is to not trivialize it—to not pretend that war is something someone gets “over” or that anyone who has been part of it will ever forget. They merely carry on which is also another example of bravery—to carry on and still live a life despite all that has attempted to destroy it.
Think of how many have never come home—those who died somewhere “over there”. Think of those who left pieces of their souls somewhere on a battlefield, in the jungles, in war torn cities and across barren deserts. How can we ever thank someone for that? How do we ever express to a widow what her husband’s sacrifice truly did for us as a country? How do we describe to a father that his son or daughter fighting for us changed us even though the loss of their child crushed them. How is there a thank you big enough for that? There just isn’t. There won’t ever be something huge enough to engulf that magnitude.
Think of all the soldiers who have lost their comrades. Maybe they were lucky, maybe it was chance, and maybe it was reprieve. The battle for our veterans is not over simply because their war has ended. So many still fight to get back to and stay and reconnect with the living. There are thousands and thousands who suffer from PTSD and other afflictions. These dear men and women are here all around us. We can’t forget it and we can’t think that any should be unchanged by losing a piece of themselves “over there”.
Most Memorial Day parades are silent. There are no words here that can encompass what has taken place. There is no voice to describe the unspeakable loss of our fallen soldiers and for those who are left to carry on.
I pray for all who have lost someone to this weariness of war. I pray for all those who suffer the aftermath of battling for freedom—not just for America but for all people who need someone to fight for them. I don’t know how any of those can find peace even in such an honorable ending of life but I pray they do somehow find it.
I am thankful, so very thankful that I was one of the lucky ones. I am not laying flowers on a grave this Memorial day. I was lucky because my father was a soldier who came home.
Monika M. Basile
We cannot raise the dead. We cannot erase the damage of what each serviceman has witnessed and experienced and the horrors they carry with them. Our honoring of their bravery is to not trivialize it—to not pretend that war is something someone gets “over” or that anyone who has been part of it will ever forget. They merely carry on which is also another example of bravery—to carry on and still live a life despite all that has attempted to destroy it.
Think of how many have never come home—those who died somewhere “over there”. Think of those who left pieces of their souls somewhere on a battlefield, in the jungles, in war torn cities and across barren deserts. How can we ever thank someone for that? How do we ever express to a widow what her husband’s sacrifice truly did for us as a country? How do we describe to a father that his son or daughter fighting for us changed us even though the loss of their child crushed them. How is there a thank you big enough for that? There just isn’t. There won’t ever be something huge enough to engulf that magnitude.
Think of all the soldiers who have lost their comrades. Maybe they were lucky, maybe it was chance, and maybe it was reprieve. The battle for our veterans is not over simply because their war has ended. So many still fight to get back to and stay and reconnect with the living. There are thousands and thousands who suffer from PTSD and other afflictions. These dear men and women are here all around us. We can’t forget it and we can’t think that any should be unchanged by losing a piece of themselves “over there”.
Most Memorial Day parades are silent. There are no words here that can encompass what has taken place. There is no voice to describe the unspeakable loss of our fallen soldiers and for those who are left to carry on.
I pray for all who have lost someone to this weariness of war. I pray for all those who suffer the aftermath of battling for freedom—not just for America but for all people who need someone to fight for them. I don’t know how any of those can find peace even in such an honorable ending of life but I pray they do somehow find it.
I am thankful, so very thankful that I was one of the lucky ones. I am not laying flowers on a grave this Memorial day. I was lucky because my father was a soldier who came home.
Monika M. Basile
