Promises Made
Near the end of our Plebe Summer indoctrination at the Naval Academy we got the body bags talk. They brought out an old Master Chief Photographers Mate who talked about the pictures of the dead service members she had to take in Vietnam. She told us, in intentionally gory detail, the difference between helicopter pilot remains and jet jockey remains. And what frag grenades and high velocity projectiles actually did to the human body. And then she told us about the mothers and fathers and children who lost their family members that would throw themselves onto the flag draped coffins on the tarmac of whatever airfield they landed. The point was to let us know exactly what it was we were about to get ourselves into.
An 18 year old kid at bootcamp is an engine of emotions that aren’t allowed to come out. When they do, it’s a bit like the dam breaking. So we all stood there bawling in the Bancroft Hall dorm hallway trying desperately not to. As suddenly as she started she finished by bringing out a boombox to play Lee Greenwood’s I’m Proud to Be an American and the whole thing devolved into an awkward Michael Scott team building scene. And so began my uncomfortable and evolving relationship with the symbology of our fallen heroes.
At first, I went through the motions of honoring our fallen like I was supposed to. Anything less felt sacrilegious. But then my wars came. And I lost teammates and friends for fights that I knew deep down probably weren’t worth it. And I got angry. I stayed angry for a long time.
There’s an old John Adams quote that is often falsely attributed to many other people throughout history. “If a person is not a liberal when he is twenty, he has no heart; if he is not a conservative when he is forty, he has no head.” At 46, I can feel this in my bones. Not in a political sense. But more in how I see the sacred things that bind us as a people. I know I’m not that old. But I’m not on the way out any more. I’m on the way back. And things like faith or my approach to parenting and work have taken a bit of a turn. And so has my perspective on Memorial Day.
Sometimes the naive and the wise believe the same things for the same reasons. It was hard, and honestly still is, to say that a teammate that was lost in Ramadi died for the freedom of Americans. It’s naivety at best; hypocrisy at worst. I struggled to get past that and for a long time I let the nature of the conflicts I served in color how I saw the sacrifices that the men and women we lost made. I was angry for them. And that anger kept me from honoring them properly. What life has shown me though, and what Adams I think meant, was that in youth little is sacred. But life teaches you that a world where no one believes in anything is a world that you don’t want to live in. Some things are sacred no matter what.
In a military memorial for someone killed in action, there’s a final roll call. I’ve been to my fair share, some still in Iraq just days after we lost someone. First, they call out the names of a few team members of the fallen. They answer. And then they get to the fallen teammate. They call the name three times and there is silence. Then comes the guns. And then the lone trumpet. It’s the silence after the name that rips you up. I find myself back in the hallway listening to the Master Chief in that innocent moment before the stupid song played, trying and failing to keep it together.
What was once true of our fallen is always true. They’re heroes. The promise was made. And it was called in. And the promise we made back was to never forget them and what they did. And in that beautiful contract there is a sacred strength found in a people that will fight for something. And in that there’s some promise of freedom.
Like I said, sometimes the naive and the wise believe the same things for the same reasons. It just takes time to find your way back.