Gave their Lives

"Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori."

(It is sweet and fitting to die for one's fatherland.)

The Roman poet Horace wrote it. It is the sort of thing that people engrave on bronze memorials.  It is the final line in the plaque in my nearby community of Ashland, Oregon.

Vietnam combat veteran Larry Slessler has a Memorial Day comment about that.

Guest Post by Larry Slessler

The two toughest days of the year for me are Veterans Day and Memorial Day. I will not repeat what drives me bat guano crazy. OK, just a peek at my inner demons. When any speaker refers to thanking the men and women who "Gave their lives. . . ", my inner voice screams: "Gave my ass, you SOB." Life was ripped from these young people in horrible ways and their future life denied them.

 

Let me be clear: I endured war with one overarching goal. That was to go back home intact of body and soul. The day I left for my tour I said goodbye to my two-year- 10-month-old daughter. She looked up, smiled, and said "Goodbye, Daddy" like I was headed to the store for a loaf of bread. I was devastated. Would that exchange be our last? A few days prior I had walked with my father and we stood on the Medford Main Street bridge overlooking Bear Creek. I told Dad I didn't want to go. He replied to his eldest child and only son, you signed a contract and you must honor that contract. That had to have been hard for dad.   

 

I did not hate the enemy, or give a rat's ass about Domino Theory, Containment, Hearts and Minds, and the Communist threat. God, motherhood, apple pie, Chevrolet, and night baseball were meaningless to me. Doing my tour of duty with honor and my buddies and me going back to "The World" (Home) were all that mattered to me. Being an old man of 26 was a negative.The average age of an in-country vet was 19.5. An 18-and-19-year-old's self-belief in his own immortality and survival is a gift that quickly is stripped of one as we age.    

 

Frank Murphy, a WWII vet, in his memoir Luck of the Draw writes: "At the end of the day, combat soldiers do not fight for love of country or because they hate the enemy. They fight for each other."   

 

So spare me the parades, the political speeches and the discounted or free meals. Do me a favor, and once during Memorial Day give silent prayer or thoughts for the soldiers of all nations that had their lives taken from them and the survivors that still did, and continue to, pay a price. War zone duty sucks.

 

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